Remnants of the Reclaimers
by Lieutenant-058
Summary: Blue team, shaped by the death of Sam into a four man squad stumbles upon a mysterious artifact and are pulled into a world and a war that is not their own.
1. Chapter 1

"I'm sorry students, but the field test that was to be conducted today in the Emerald Forest has been canceled due to a freak storm." Professor Glynda Goodwitch said to the assembled first year Beacon students.

"However this test will take place instead on Friday. Afternoon classes were canceled for this exercise, I am going to ask you all to participate in a team building exercise of some sort, and give a small summary of what you did and why. These assignments will be turned in tomorrow at the beginning of combat class."  
There was a collective groan from the students at the mention of an assignment, as they were all looking forward to finishing their exercise and having the rest of the day off. 

Back at the dorm, the four members of team RWBY were debating on what they should do for the project. Yang Xiao Long, the loud, excitable, brawler, suggested that they have a race of some sort for their team-building exercise.

However, Ruby Rose, the childish leader of the team quickly said, "But that would be competitive. Professor Goodwitch specially said 'Team Building', not a competition."  
"Fine." huffed Yang  
"Ooh, I know," Weiss Schnee, the heiress to the famous Schnee dust company, interjects, "We could go to the museum, they have a new exhibit on the development of flight and aircraft. We could learn as a team."  
Blake Belladonna, the dark, quiet Faunus girl, says, "How about something that we have to work together on? I know a cool escape room that just opened up in Vale."  
Ruby jumped up on one of the beds, "Everybody listen up," Ruby shouted, "Your team leader has an idea. We go into the Emerald Forest, and we make a mini-newscast of the storm. Just think about it: we all have to work together to do it. Blake can be camera lady, I can be the reporter, Weiss will be the anchorwoman, and Yang will be Grimm protection. It's perfect, we work as a team, and it is fun!"  
Yang punches a gauntleted fist into the air, "YEAH! Let's do this."  
"Not too bad of an idea; we wouldn't have to write a summary, because we just turn in the newscast with an explanation," Blake added quietly.  
"Wait, isn't the storm why the exercise was canceled in the first place?"  
"Stop worrying Weiss, we'll be fine," Ruby said, exasperated.

Four shadows ghosted into an abandoned underground warehouse. Their leader gives the all clear. Four Spartans, fourteen-year-old super soldiers who could easily pass as young adults due to their augmentations, walk into the center of the warehouse. They reveal themselves to be John-117, Linda-058, Fred-104, and Kelly-087. They quickly start searching the boxes, looking for anything that might help them to complete their training mission. John was worried, the trainers were given much better equipment this time, full power armor suits, sure they couldn't move very far, but they were much more powerful in strength and speed, almost comparable to the Spartan's own, and there were a lot more trainers than Spartans. He wasn't sure how they were going to get the flag this time. "You should see this," Kelly calling to the others, pulling John out of his thoughts. What she had called them over to see was a massive hole in the floor, leading to a dark cavern. It looked like a sinkhole had formed and collapsed after this facility had been abandoned.  
"Linda, search that hole with your light. Fred, once we see that it's safe I want you down first, Kelly you second. I'll go third. Linda, once we're down there, come join us." John ordered.  
The searching beam of the flashlight illuminated a large cavern made of foreign metal, which was clearly made by some intelligent race. John wasn't sure if this was an ONI project, or the first sign of this new alien intelligence that the covenant worshipped. Either way, the Spartans had to be careful. The group immediately had their gaze drawn to the center of the room. There was an open area surrounded by four pillars pointing towards the center, forming a bare bone, futuristic teepee. Blue Team carefully ventured inside the space and were surprised when they all stepped inside. Transparent walls sprung up forming an enclosure. Then, what seemed like a small black hole spun up and sucked all four Spartans in. John thought the surreal experience was similar to being sucked through a straw, as his armor powered down, he lost consciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

Blake could see why the field test was canceled. The storm truly was dangerous. She heard a volley of loud crashing and snapping noises as another piece of debris flew by the girls' setup. Ruby was going on and on, while Blake filmed with Weiss occasionally nodding or saying "Wow" at the appropriate time. The younger girl seemed ecstatic.  
Yang voiced her concern to the group:  
"I haven't seen a single Grimm, and they usually love storms, or at least stalking people that are caught out in one-"  
"Yang look! Over there!" Ruby shouted, gesturing towards the center of the storm. Blake trained the camera where Ruby was pointing and zoomed in. What she saw shocked the usually calm and collected Faunus. There appeared to be bodies falling from the sky.  
"Maybe a Nevermore grabbed some people and they attacked it, making it drop them?" Weiss rationalized.  
"We better find out," Yang yelled as she started running towards the bodies.

The four girls arrived to see a pack of Beowolves surrounding the limp figures, who appeared to be just coming to their senses, they each wore nothing but some sort of black bodysuit. The storm had lessened in strength considerably. Blake pocketed her Scroll and pulled out her sword, preparing for a fight. Ruby fired a few shots at the largest grim of the group before folding out Crescent Rose and launching herself into the fray. She slashed at a couple of Grimm, cutting one in half and digging a deep cut in the side of the other. The larger of the two roared in rage and backhanded Ruby, sending her flying back into a tree. The rest of Team RWBY quickly finished the rest of the Beowolves, before turning to see if their young leader was ok. However, they were shocked to see that the once-limp forms were standing, and one of them was holding a knife to Ruby's throat. Another was holding Crescent Rose in rifle form with the look of an experienced sniper. The three girls froze before Yang almost charged the boy holding the knife.

Weiss grabbed the taller girls jacket, saying, "You can't reach them in time. Let's just see what they want."  
"Let go of our leader right now, before I come over there and break you!" Yang yelled at the four.  
"Yang, we should probably let Weiss do the talking she is the most experienced in this kind of thing." Blake calmly suggested while putting a restraining hand on the visibly raging Yang's shoulder 

"Who are you and where are we?" Fred demanded, surprising the girls. This was the first time any of the four Spartans spoke  
"Uh, we're students from Beacon Academy," Weiss said shakily pointing to the cliff where the school was located. "And we're in the Emerald Forest, West of Vale."  
"Ok, now what planet?"  
"Um, Remnant? What other planet would it be?"  
Fred filed that info away for a later time and thought, "This could be one of the old colony worlds, from before slipspace was discovered, and their society evolved and forgot space travel. Or it could be an alien race that evolved very similarly to humans, and we are on an undiscovered alien world." John spoke up next:  
"Drop your weapons, all of them. Even the bracelet shotguns."  
"Just listen to them, please," Ruby pleaded

Yang yelled, "No, I'll Neve-"

Blake grabbed her, "Just do it" she hissed in Yang's ear.

Team RWBY grudgingly complied.  
Kelly quickly walked over and scooped up the pile of weapons, taking Myrenaster, and handing Ember Celica to Fred and giving John Gambol Shroud.  
"Are you four part of the Insurrection?" Kelly asked as Fred let go of Ruby, her British accent showing.  
"What's the Insurrection?" The younger girl asked. "If you mean the White Fang, then absolutely not, but if you really want answers you should talk to Professor Ozpin. He's the school headmaster. We can take you to his office."  
"That would be great, and don't try anything," Linda said.  
The walk up to Beacon was silent. Team RWBY wondered about their predicament, while Blue Team mulled over the new information they have received.

Once at Beacon, the strange group attracted some stares. However, once they got in the elevator to Ozpin's office, everyone just went back to what they were doing beforehand. They knew that their headmaster would figure out the problem and solve it, whatever it was.

"Where is the nearest UNSC base sir, and what is the easiest way off this planet?"  
"I have no idea what the UNSC is," Ozpin replied, staring intently at the motley crew assembles in his office.  
"Dust is the main energy source, and it loses all potency once leaving the atmosphere. As far as I know, there is no way off Remnant. And please, call me Professor Ozpin. I would like to hear what went on in that forest, at least your version of it."  
Ruby spoke up. "Can I tell what happened from our perspective?"  
"Of course, Miss Rose," Ozpin replied. Ruby recounted the events but left out the part where Fred held a knife to her throat. John noticed this, and was wondering why she would do this when Ozpin asked the question for him.  
"Why did you leave out that this young man," he pointed to Fred, "Held a knife to your throat?"  
Ruby said, "Well, uh, they were just confused and scared, and I would be too if I fell out of a storm and saw giant monsters stalking me- Hey, how'd you know about that?"  
"Thank you for your honesty, Ruby. Now, could you four tell me why you decided that holding a knife to Miss Rose's throat was a good idea?" Ozpin asked.  
John spoke up. "We had no idea where we were, and whether the people we saw were enemies. So we seized an advantage. If they were enemies we wouldn't be killed, and if they were friends, we could be forgiven."  
"Hmm… Well, since it seems you four will be staying here a while, and you are all holding Team RWBY's weapons with the stance and look of experienced fighters, I would like to offer you a place at my academy, it is the best place for me to keep an eye on you, but only after you apologize to team RWBY and give them back their weapons." Ozpin's said. "Also, if you are willing to start class, we are part way through our first semester, and you will have to give me your names and come up with a team name."  
"We are Blue Team," John said, with no hesitation then went on to say his name. "John-117, sir—Professor."  
"I'm Kelly-087." Stated the brown-haired girl. "This is Linda-058," she gestured to the tall red-haired girl standing behind the others. "And he's Fred-104."  
"I guess that will do for now, but I would hope you tell me your real names sooner or later unless you are some sort of Atlas project and don't have any, which would be unfortunate. You can have the dorm next to Team RWBY's. I will have schedules brought down there in the morning."

Blue Team and Team RWBY walked quietly back to their respective dorms. As they step off the elevator, Kelly speaks up: "Where is the nearest centralized information database?"  
Ruby looks at her with a look of confusion on her face, then one of understanding.  
"Oh, you mean the library. Well, there's one downstairs that's pretty big. Blake goes there all the time. But there's a bigger one on the north side of Vale."  
"She could also mean the CCT tower," Weiss added. "Because that has some files, and you can pull up books from other places, we can give you a tour this weekend."  
Blake quietly told them, "Breakfast is from seven to eight o'clock, though I recommend getting there early so you have time to look at your schedule and meet Team JNPR, our friends who live across the hall. They can be a handful sometimes, but they're still good people."

Kelly thanked them and was about to follow her team when she turned around and asked the girls, "I hope it's not an intrusion, but what's a weekend?" Team RWBY's jaws dropped.


	3. Chapter 3

Kelly was amazed at the idea of breaks from training and work, as well as other things many of these people seemed to take for granted, such as long hot showers. She remembered the showers at the Spartan camp had hot water for about thirty seconds, and the water stopped altogether after five, but the Spartans thought that was only because that was how long Mendez took to drink his coffee.

She mulled it over during her morning calisthenics with the rest of her team, nothing too heavy for them. Since they didn't know what they would be facing, they did a hundred or so reps to get the blood flowing in their enhanced frames.

They had gotten up two hours before breakfast so they would have time to shower and get to the library to gather information. They had retrieved a few uniforms each, as they had nothing else to wear except their under suits. "Ugh, how are these skirts practical, like at all," Linda said as a tailor helped her with her uniform.

"They let you move a lot, but it may take some time to get used to, but this weekend you can get new clothes." The tailor said standing up, "you're all done, the library is down two floors and on the left, you can't miss it, and could you send in your friend," she checked her list, "Kelly. And thank you for your patience." When all the uniforms had been received and fitted Blue team split up to research. Linda and John immediately gravitated towards the books on the science of Dust, while Kelly and Fred went to look for anything regarding the "Grimm" people kept mentioning. After researching for a while, they headed to the cafeteria and wolfed down food. Blue team had no idea what to expect, if some instructors were going to barge in and order them on a training run, missing most of their breakfast, then Blue Team was prepared. But they were only left bored as they waited for the next half hour for classes to start. The Spartans had learned to never take food for granted as they knew their meal could be interrupted anytime by some sort of instructor with a surprise training exercise. Plus, Kelly noted, the use of food as a reward was a good idea by Mendez, but it had left the Spartans hungry and not always at their peak performance, They watched teams RWBY and JNPR stumble in halfway through breakfast.  
_

"Why were they up so early?" Ruby asked, whiny and groggy, having not had any caffeine or sugar yet to jump-start her system. "I mean they do know they don't have to arrive at the exact start of breakfast right?"

"I heard them up at around five o'clock," Blake added quietly.

Yang moaned, "How do they get up so early?" promptly falling asleep in her pancakes, splattering syrup all over Weiss, who stomped off to change.

Ruby handed the schedules over to John who quickly passed them out to his team, all of which read it over thoroughly and quickly. When they were done Ruby said, "if you have any questions, go ahead and ask us or team JNPR, we don't bite, except maybe Weiss,

"Hey!" A voice called as Weiss re-entered the room, Ruby snickered.

"But that is about it, there aren't that many first years, so you there's pretty much one class, so, um, don't be shy." Ruby finished with a smile as John just stared at her unsure if the girl was waiting for a reply. He finally said,

"Ok" as Ruby took one last glance at the Spartan and skipped off.

1st year Beacon Schedule   
  
7:00-8:00 Breakfast

8:30-9:30 Math with Prof. Oobleck

9:45-10:45 History of Remnant with Prof.  
Oobleck

11:00-12:30 Combat Training with Prof. Goodwitch

12:45-1:45 Lunch

2:00-3:00 Grimm Studies with Prof. Port

3:00-5:00 Study Hall

5:15-6:15 Weapon and Dust Science with Profs. Ozpin and/or Goodwitch

6:30-7:30 Dinner

10:30 Curfew

_

Linda noted that Professor Oobleck was quite an oddity. He seemed able to consistently teleport around the room, berate the students, ask questions, drink his coffee, and teach, all at the same time.

"Maybe that's his semblance, supernatural multitasking?" Linda thought as she watched Ruby get lectured for answering a question incorrectly. Linda enjoyed Oobleck's class as he was able to help students learn and improve their knowledge in a way that would help them in their later lives, (Ruby kept saying that he was so confusing, but at least he wasn't as useless as professor Port). Most seemed to have a hard time keeping up with his incredibly fast curriculum, Blue Team, however, was used to this as they had trained most of their lives under an A.I. Since the Spartans were completely unfamiliar with the history of remnant they answered most questions in history with, "I am not antiquated with that particular event" or something similar. Linda simply wondered at the fact that many of the others in the class did not seem to understand the math that Professor Oobleck was teaching. Deja had taught them what they would need to know for their craft and to excel the Spartans needed a superb understanding of almost anything needed for the design and creation of weapons and other UNSC tech that wasn't-classified, and this "new" math was incredibly easy compared to that.

From the Desk of Prof. Glinda Goodwitch

I simply thought; since the newcomers to our classroom have not been assigned weapons yet and most of the students need to learn this any way that for the next week or so I would teach mostly hand-to-hand combat. As usual, I announced this and gave a quick lecture on the basics, I noticed that the new students seemed to be paying attention better than the rest of the class and acted much more disciplined than I would expect from students who just fell out of the sky with nothing but clothes and a single combat knife. After I asked if anyone would like to volunteer to spar first the entire class raised their hands I decided that I would try to include the new students as much as possible, however, I wanted to give them an example first. I had two members of team RWBY come up; Blake Belladonna, and Weiss Schnee. The two girls stood on opposite sides of the ring and when I signaled for the round to start. they began to circle each other, each girl watching her opponent carefully. Blake suddenly launched herself toward Weiss, I had noted earlier that miss Belladonna had an unpredictable and unconventional, but well-executed style, and was not afraid to get close. Weiss was her polar opposites with a heavily regimented, formal Atlas style that emphasized keeping an opponent at a distance. Refocusing my attention back on the fight Weiss launched a kick at the taller girl, catching her by surprise knocking her back. I watched as the corner of Weiss's mouth twitched upwards in a slight smile, as Blake ran back at Weiss the heiress tried the same move, only to see Blake flip, leaping over the attack, after a quick struggle Blake had Weiss in a headlock, and knowing she couldn't get out of it Weiss decided to yield.

The two team members walked back to their seats, Blake with a slight smile, and Weiss looking angry, I added, "Miss Schnee, perhaps next time you would do better to change your move set based on your opponent's attacks, instead of trying to repeat counters, because most human opponents will not fall for the same thing again. And miss Belladonna, excellent use of a feint and the grappling, it was well executed, but I would've liked to see a more cautious approach, I understand you are used to having your semblance take the hit for you, but it is always better to take less punishment."

For the next round I wanted to see how capable this "Blue team" was so I called up one of their members, "Linda, and, is that your last" name gesturing to the large -058 on the display board, and asked who would like to fight her. Not nearly as many hands this time, only Pyrrha Nikos and Cardin Winchester. I thought that sending a newcomer in to fight with our top first year would be a little overwhelming, and Cardin did have a slower, less skilled fighting style, so I would prefer to send him in.

The fight started, and Cardin immediately charged at Linda and swung at her, she simply stepped away from the punch flying towards her face, almost casually dodging an aura enhanced blow. I noticed that Linda looked hesitant, almost as if she didn't want to attack, and kept glancing over toward her team in the stands. I realized that intervention was needed, I stated to the combatants, "Miss, Linda, the goal here is to fight back, not to avoid damage, please take action accordingly." The difference was immediate, as soon as Cardin came at her again, Linda dropped to a slide, and slid underneath the outstretched arm elbowing Cardin's knees as she slid by, before flipping over his head and planting her heel in his back as he fell forward, further speeding up his short journey to the floor. I checked the board and found that Cardin's aura was already depleted and the armor he was wearing took the hit, almost breaking it, keeping his spine from shattering. Linda looked almost as shocked as I did, almost as if she expected him to last longer, or something of the sort.

After seeing Cardin off to the infirmary I decided to have two members of Blue team fight each other to see what they could do. John and Fred. The two immediately charged at each other and started throwing incredibly fast volleys of punches and kicks, with equally fast parries and dodges. At first, it looked like a normal sparring match with a few mistakes but then I looked closer and realized both were trying to expertly maneuver the other towards the dent created by Linda smashing Cardin to the floor, the only place in the arena with uneven footing. I noticed that Fred was starting to gain an advantage over his teammate. The battle carried on for at least another few minutes like this, but eventually john was baited over the uneven ground and when he was unbalanced, even though it was short Fred quickly finished the fight with a swift punch that knocked about John off his feet and onto his back before sliding a good meter or two along the floor. I noted in my lesson plan that these newcomers seemed to be incredibly skilled, strong, and fast without the use of an aura. However, they seemed to be holding back, almost as if they don't want anyone to know their true level of skill and power.

I knew that the battlefield rarely comes down to a simple duel, so I decided to have a three-way battle to give an example for the students, I sent in Yang and Ren, along with the final newcomer; Kelly. At the beginning of the round Ren and Yang each had observed how the Spartans were very powerful in the other rounds, so they quickly teamed up against the newcomer. Ren launched a flurry of kicks toward Kelly, but she darted past him with speed that seemed insane compared even to her Blue team counterparts. Yang tried to jump Kelly from behind as Ren charged at them both, Kelly seemed to sense the blonde's strike and twitched her head out of the way so it simply glanced her shoulder, and launched her straight at the charging Ren. Ren reacted quickly, but it wasn't enough. Kelly grabbed his outstretched arm, spun towards his chest and whittled down his aura with a volley of elbows before jumping up, kicking off his chest, and sending him flying toward Yang, dropping his aura below the defeated line. This brought the match to a standard 1v1. Yang caught Kelly off guard and managed to land a hard hit on the girl's shoulder, but the powerful blow simply spun the girl around and into a new combat stance. Kelly just shrugged off what would have been a devastating blow to most before launching into a lunge with inhuman speed and promptly landing three blows before Yang could react, but the brawler wasn't done yet. Her eyes flared in rage, and she roared and lunged back into combat.

Yang managed to land another a hit as a flurry of blows flew towards Kelly. She dodged most of them, but one hit her left hip and knocked her off balance. However, she quickly regained her position, but something was different this time. It appeared to me that Kelly was favoring her right side. Yang saw this weakness and tried to capitalize on it by throwing a left hook feint, and then trying to slam Kelly with a punch from her right fist. It looked like it would be the finishing blow, except at the last second, Kelly caught the fist with lightning speed, using Yang's momentum to ram her stomach onto Kelly's knee, disintegrating what was left of the brawler's aura. I was honestly amazed. Kelly had faked an injury convincingly. If she truly had been hurt in the places were Yang hit her, there would have been no way that she could have caught that punch and then delivered that blow. She did it in such a small way that an experienced fighter would notice, but it wouldn't seem forced.

Kelly helped Yang up and walked back to her seat as if she pulled off impossible feats in the middle of a fight every day. The bell rang and the students filed out of the classroom, and for the rest of the day, I was left wondering who these strange, powerful kids were.


	4. Chapter 4

During lunch, Yang seemed distant and angry. Halfway through, Blake couldn't take it anymore and drug Yang back to their room. This didn't stop Ruby from continuing to shoot off question after question about Blue Team's origin.

"Who are you four, like some sort of Atlas military experiment? Or-" Weiss asked, excitedly.

"Oh, oh, are you robots? Or alien Ninjas from Mistral?" Ruby interjected, jumping on top of the table and mimicking karate chops.

"Well," Kelly said, glancing over to John for what to say. He quickly signed in the Spartan's version of sign language, Affirmative. Don't. Show. Secret. Kelly understood, it meant don't reveal anything classified, which was basically the entire Spartan program.

She turned to Ruby and Weiss and said' "We've had some training already, just not specifically huntsman training. I would explain, but you should probably show us where the next class is so we aren't late."

Blake hoped that Blue Team quickly figured out that Professor Port's class was mostly stories and ramblings. You don't have to take notes (and if you do, you'll fill three notebooks of total bologna every class). If you just do the assigned readings and some additional research in the library, you'll most likely pass. However, today seemed different. Port actually included the class more this time. He was telling a tale of defeating Ursa Majors in some place in Minstrel when he said something that caught everyone by surprise.

"Today for the last fifteen minutes of the class, I will be showing you the main weak points of most Grimm in the form of an Oral exam."

He began walking around the room, asking questions. Nobody was spared. Port got around to Linda, to whom he asked:

"You there young lady, can you tell me what the main weak points of a Beowulf are?"

Ruby spoke up. "Professor, but she has never fought one, and the only one she saw was just a flash of one as she was waking up from being unconscious."

"No, it's fine." Replied Linda, "Could I see a picture of one of these Beowolves since I have not had the chance to study them?"

"I don't see why not," said the Professor.

Weiss produced a simple picture of a Beowulf on her Scroll and passed it to the Spartan, stared at it for about a minute before answering:

"The weaknesses are the eyes, hips, knees and the wrists."

"You are partially correct young lady," Professor Port stated, trying to cover up his obvious surprise.

"The knees, hips, and eyes are correct, but the Beowolves' arms and wrists are some of the strongest parts of its body, making it almost useless to attack that area. If you had heavy armor piercing rounds, you could use them to cripple the attack, which is something I have used to my advantage many a time in my long and heroic huntsman career. Say, did you ever hear my story of the tie that I used to strangle a Goliath?"

Port strode around the room recounting his tale, whether it was true or not couldn't be determined at the moment, though surely some of the details were exaggerated quite a bit. This reminded Blake of a certain huntress in training. She glanced up at Nora, who was completely engrossed in Port's story. She was the only one in the class who seemed to pay any attention whatsoever during Port's ramblings. The bell rang and Port yelled something about doing assigned readings as the class quickly evacuated his room.

Blue Team did homework with Team RWBY, as they needed help with some of the history, as they had no base knowledge whatsoever. Yang was asking Kelly where they learned to fight.

"Well, we worked with the military for a little later in our training but we spent most of our time at an outpost in the mountains. We have three teachers there."

"The history homework is especially hard for— Wow, only three?" Weiss said.

"Yup. What's so fascinating about that?"

"Nothing," Weiss replied, trying not to show her excitement about learning about a school that could be truly worthy of the Schnee family.

Pyrrha walked into the room, asking if anyone had seen the rest of her team, then stopped as she saw Bue team, "I don't believe we have been properly introduced, I'm Pyrrha Nikos," but no one was paying attention. All the heads in the room were swiveling back and forth between Linda and Pyrrha before Ruby finally spoke up, "Pyrrha you didn't tell us you had a sister." giggling a little. Linda sighed as if this had happened before,

"Calm down it is just the hair and eyes, but it is nice to finally meet the leader of team JNPR in person."

"No no no, I'm not the leader, Jaune is." Blue team looked surprised,

"So you're telling me that a scraggly blonde boy who can barely stand against the kids a few years younger than him is the leader of a team at one of the prestigious Huntsman academies?" Fred said, raising his eyebrows, "I find that hard to believe"

Pyrrha quickly responded, "He may not have the greatest fighting skills, but he has a lot of potential," looking at Fred disapprovingly.

"Ok, ok, I believe you, but I just found it surprising, anyway, it is nice to finally meet the top first year, I'm Fred, that's John and Kelly," pointing to his team members who were currently absorbed in disassembling one of the simple standard issue Atlas rifles each member of the team was given. Kelly spoke up, and your sister over there is Linda- who suddenly interrupted, "I've told you this before Kelly, just because someone has the same hair and eyes as I do, does not make me related." Shooting a surprisingly angry glare at her teammate, then went back to modifying her own rifle for more of the sniper role she preferred.

John was enthralled in Ozpin's lecture on the science of dust and its applications in the field of weaponry, mainly in ammunition, though surprisingly Linda seemed to be paying less attention than usual as she was fiddling with a few hunks of dust and some sort of small tool beneath their shared lab table. He knew she heard every word Ozpin said and filed it away somewhere, but that she wasn't taking notes and drawing schematics for new weapons and attachments showed she found something even more interesting. Ozpin continued on, Lecturing about what methods are used to stabilize when he suddenly asked, "Miss Linda, since you seem so, engaged, in our lesson, could you please tell us what the most stable form of dust is and which is the most commonly used in the four kingdoms?" Without looking up, Linda answered, "the polished dust sphere is the most stable and least reactive of the common dust forms, while the cut crystal is the most common due to its ease to use and variety of applications." Ozpin sighed and scowled a little, and went back to his lecture. "Wow she really isn't paying attention," John thought, those were words straight out of the book they had been reading earlier that morning, she must have found something that could be applied to their current mission; getting off the planet and finding a way to return to UNSC space, as that took priority to anything else. He shook his head and returned the majority of his attention to the lesson. John thought it weird that no one had tried to fuse dust together, and he raised his hand to ask the question, Ozpin answered; "well, there have been attempts, but they have ended in, shall we say failure-" he was cut off by a loud bang and John was thrown back as an explosion shot smoke in every direction. Ozpin seemed unfazed, "So that is what you were working on miss Linda, though I am surprised you got this far, even with the unreactive polished spheres I gave you, trying to fuse two together would usually blow up within the first minute and a half, please see me in my office this evening." Linda looked a little crestfallen, and was covered in soot. Ruby giggled a little at the next table before getting elbowed by Weiss. John shot them a glare just as the bell rung, before reminding himself that to them this was all a joke, and not a possibly deadly explosion that could have killed a normal human, and the teacher wasn't even concerned. John led Blue team back to their dorm, but Kelly and Fred thought they should probably head to the lab to further work on their weapons, (the standard issue equipment wasn't exactly in the best shape since most students had their own weapons)

When they were alone John asked Linda with a deadly seriousness, "what exactly were you trying to do?"

Linda responded, "Two things, one to fuse two forms of dust together, which ended badly, but secondly," she held something up for him to see.

"What? It looks like a normal 50 cal shell, but with a dust tip, I don't see what you are getting at here."

"Well you see, Remnant weapons use the dust piece as a projectile, firing the whole thing except the brass casing, we would normally put gunpowder or some other propellant behind the bullet, but as I said before, they shoot the entire thing, this results in reduced velocity, but a heavier round, making it altogether less efficient unless you are at point blank range. So what I worked on was a dust bullet, combined with dust powder behind to act as a propellant, like a normal cartridge."

"So this is something that will give us an advantage?"

"In short, yes."

"Great can you show the rest of the team how to make them? But on another note when you go to talk to Ozpin, I want to see if I can hang outside the window to eavesdrop, he seemed pretty suspicious, I want to see if he reveals anything, and I want to be there if you need help."

"Alright, fine. and when the dust exploded, he didn't seem concerned for anyone's safety, we don't know if he is a friend or foe."

John huffed, and replied under his breath, "We all saw what happened last time there were moral grey areas that I had to deal with on my own," his mind flashing back to the weight room, and the bodies, before shaking off the thought. Linda laid a hand on his shoulder, "Hey, you were still getting used to the augmentations, and the ODSTs didn't know who they were messing with, and they were being unreasonable. Don't stress it." John just sighed and said, "we should get moving, it's almost the time Ozpin wanted to see you"

 **AN: (Updated) I don't think I will give blue team semblances, but they may or may not get their armor back later, and just for clarification this takes place just after Sam dies and they first get Mjolnir armor, they fall into Remnant with their bodysuits (What goes under the armor plates), but hide them in their room, and as I said, could get the rest of it back.**


	5. Chapter 5

John got off the elevator two floors below Ozpin's office, wished Linda good luck then climbed out the window, he grabbed at the outcropping next to the window as the wind wrapped it's icy tendrils around him and tried to rip him off the building, he wrenched his grip tighter and began his ascent.

Linda stepped out of the elevator to see Ozpin sitting behind his desk and Ms. Goodwitch sitting behind him. Linda started, "you wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes, and you can drop the sir, I'm a Professor, but it seems you weren't lying when you said you have worked with the military at lunch," Ozpin said before taking a sip out of his mug. Just as Ozpin finished Linda noted John's hand clench on the windowsill and edge to a window that was cracked open to let in the fresh night air. Ozpin started up again, "I hope you understand why I've called you here, and why you were taken into the school in the first place." he looked at her, expecting something.

"Yes professor, you want to keep an eye on us, and you want to reprimand me for not paying attention and disrespect in class." Linda quickly said.

"Well, aren't you the observant one, the acceptance, yes. What would you do if four kids fall out of the sky, show military discipline, incredible strength and speed, and the first thing they do is threaten one of your student's lives? Probably the same as I have done, but no, you were not called here mainly for disciplining. It is actually about what happened during combat class, you see, you almost broke Cardin Winchester's spine." A shocked look flew across Linda's face, as she said,

"with what I hit him with that should have done nothing more than bruise him, or maybe break his nose." Ozpin raised an eyebrow.

"It seems you do not know your own strength, miss Linda," Glynda said, before getting shushed by Ozpin.

"Yes, please be more careful in the future, but in the meantime, could you tell us what this is?" Ozpin asked. Linda saw it, and a slight look of recognition flashed across her face, slight enough that only a fellow spartan would see it, before fading to the mask that came before. It was a piece of Mjolnir armor, one that would attach on the right wrist, but she simply said, "I think that is something one of my teachers was working on, back at our old school," as the green wrist piece was held up to her, "can I have it to confirm?"

"I don't see why not," said Ozpin, "but if you figure it out, please let us know."

John was back at the room before Linda even opened the door, and once she entered the room Linda summoned an angry look on her face and started yelling at John about some homework assignment. He became very confused as to why his teammate was yelling at him for no apparent reason, and just stared at her for a few seconds, before he realized, she was signing with her hands, what looked like normal angry hand motions were actually, Room Bugged Camera Disable top left corner, behind storage, repeat, John stuck his hand below his bed, out of the camera's point of view, and signed back, understood you disable I distract. Linda immediately jumped up, gave him a feigned disgusted look, a wink, and walked over to the cabinet. John strode over to a shelf, and "accidentally" knocked the entire thing over, as soon as the noise settled, Linda sighed in relief, and walked over to help put the books back. "How did you know?" John asked.

Linda responded, "Well, in his office Ozpin said that we weren't lying about how we have worked with the military, this was before you got to eavesdropping distance, and we didn't mention military until study hall when we helped team RWBY with their math homework."

"Ah, we will have to come up with a way to keep our room from being bugged again." The door opened and Kelly walked in, Kelly glanced at the room, completely a mess with books scattered everywhere and a hole in the wall from where the camera was, turned, looked directly at Linda, and said, "Looks like you two had fun" Linda's face immediately turned red, she threw the book she was holding at Kelly, who tilted her head to the side as it sailed past, then stormed over to the wall to cover up the hole. John just looked between the two girls, having no idea what just happened and said, "well, uh, I don't really know what that was all about, but the room was bugged and I tipped the bookshelf over while Linda disabled the bug, hence the hole in the wall." Kelly laughed a little, "you're so clueless when it comes to anything social John, but I'm glad you handled the bug, but how did you find it?"

"I didn't, Linda actually did, she took a hint when Ozpin slipped up."

Linda walked back over, holding up the piece of armor

"He also showed me this, and seemed a little suspicious about whether we had something to do with it, as they don't know how to build something like this." She explained. "So, I told him that I thought I saw one of our teachers working on it, and that seemed to allay some of the suspicions."

Kelly gave her a thumbs up, "Good idea, maybe we tell him that it is part of our gear and have them look out for more, saying that it might be dangerous if it were to fall into the wrong hands."

John started to walk over to the desk in the corner and called back, "agreed, but we should probably work on making more of the bullets that Linda designed, I'll comm Fred and get him to raid the dust stores, and then we should get some sleep for tomorrow's field exercise." As he raised the scroll the school had provided with the room to his ear.

 **AN: sorry for the short chapter, but the next one is long and I wanted something to tide you over until I finish writing the next one, but I hope you enjoy, and leave a review if you have any comments or concerns, (I'm kinda bored, and new ideas are always awesome)**


	6. Chapter 6

Blue team, along with all the other with three other first-year student teams were the first to participate in the field exercise. Teams RWBY, JNPR, CRDL, and Blue stood on small grey platforms overlooking a cliff. Fred, who was on the far right of the line, wondered if it was some sort of spotting or mapping exercise, or maybe even long-distance target practice. If it was the latter, he knew who would win, glancing over at Linda cradling her almost sniper rifle as she checked the magazine of their newly designed cartridges. Glynda spoke up, giving the instructions they were to follow, "each team has a selected area, you will hunt this area for a specific Grim, some sort of Alpha that I have painted with a symbol on their backs, your goal is to eliminate the target without killing any other Grim. The first team to get back earns 80 points and each team after earns five points less, so if you were to finish fourth, you would earn 65 points. Killing your target earns 10 points, and you gain another ten for not killing any other Grim, and each Grim killed subtracts one point from those ten, further details have been uploaded to your scroll. Everyone understand?" Heads nodded down the line. "Alright everyone," Ozpin said, "I want you all back safe, so stay in your area, do not venture outside of it. Exercise starting in, 5, 4,3, 2, 1… the square under his feet lurched, and Fred suddenly was launched into the air, as he overcame his surprise, he angled toward his team's section of the Emerald Forest and looked back at his team. Each of them was flying through the air in a line, though fairly spread apart, he knew they would head to his landing site, the only one they would all see. As the ground approached, adrenaline kicked in, (Or as Kelly dubbed the enhanced awareness state that was triggered by their augmentations, Spartan Time,) and things slowed down, he grabbed his rifle off his back and kept it close to his chest so it wouldn't be damaged in the fall, then tucked, rolled, and tried to soften the impact anyway he could. He hit the ground and the dirt around him shot outward, creating a mini crater. He grabbed his rifle and surveyed the area, it was a simple clearing surrounded by trees, so Fred crouched behind a bush and waited for the rest of his team.

"Fred, that sounded nothing like an owl," Linda said as she and John walked into the clearing.

A voice called out from behind a bush, "but I've been practicing, and I thought that sounded pretty good." Said Fred, as he poked his head out from behind the bush.

John interjected, "I thought that wasn't that bad, but nowhere near as good as Sam's." Kelly came running out of the trees just then, and called out, "We need to hide, there's a Bear Grim thing chasing me, and I don't want to kill it and have points taken off." Fred grabbed John's hand and tugged him over the bushes and rocks he had been hiding behind before. Kelly and Linda each scaled a tree, trying to get high into the thick branches just as an Ursa emerged from the tree line on the opposite side of the clearing. It began to sniff with its nose high in the air and slowly began to move towards Fred and John. Linda looked over to her friend in the adjacent tree, who looked down, then with a look of realization, began to unload her weapon, she then proceeded to wrench the bullet out of its brass casing, Kelly then took the shell and threw it directly at the Ursa's nose. The shell bounced off, but a small plume of dust formed around its head, and the Ursa began to sneeze and started barreling back towards the tree line, batting at its nose. Linda looked through her scope and scanned the area before giving the all clear. And within ten seconds the team was back on the move, searching for caves, where they were supposed to be able to find the alpha scorpion grim that they were assigned to take down.

After running through the forest for a few minutes, Blue team looked up at a cliff with a network of caves pockmarking the face. Blue team looked up at the caves and inwardly groaned at the multitude of areas they would need to search. "Alright," John announced, "I'll, take left, Fred, right, Kelly, take the center, and Linda, find a good position to cover all of us. I want you to search the smaller caves first, then once we've cleared those, move to the larger ones, and then we set up for each, Kelly, you willing to play rabbit?"

"As always," she responded, rolling her pants legs up. The team broke off, working like a well-oiled machine, each member taking their role seriously and completing it efficiently.

Ten minutes later, all the caves except the largest one had been searched,and nothing had been found except a few sleeping beowolves, being careful not to awaken the slumbering Grim, each cave containing the monsters had been marked on the outside a spot or two that Linda could hit to block off the entrance, keeping reinforcements from joining the alpha once it was awakened. Using the same strategy that would keep the beowolves in, Blue team decided to try to create an avalanche to finish off the alpha, and they marked areas on the cliff face which would create a rockslide when shot, then agreed on the exact plan.

After another five minutes of preparation, Fred and John were standing outside the cave and Linda was perched high in a tree, when a loud roar echoed across the cliff face and Kelly came sprinting out, almost flying into the tree line. Linda's rifle cracked four times in quick succession, and three cave entrances crumbled, trapping the still groggy occupants inside. A large pair of claws slowly emerged from the largest cave, followed by a giant head covered in glowing red eyes and a low flat body, before a large tail with a wickedly sharp barb snaked out of the cave. John and Fred peppered the armored carapace with a hail of bullets. The tail whipped out, stabbing into the ground where Fred had been less than a second ago as he dodged out of the way before rolling and coming up on one knee. The tail rose up to strike again, but Linda's rifle cracked once again and one of the grim's eye exploded in a shower of red blood. It roared and looked around for the source of the sudden pain, but was quickly distracted by Kelly running by, sprinting back towards the cliff. Seeing the original perpetrator of the interruption, the alpha scuttled back towards the cliff, and the ambush spot. In their moment of celebration, Fred and John failed to notice the segmented tail swinging around to hit them from behind until it was almost too late. Fred tried to duck below the swinging appendage, but got hit in the shoulder and flew straight into a tree, John saw his teammate fly by and flattened himself to the ground, and luckily the tail flew just above his head. As Kelly lured the alpha into the ambush spot, Linda unloaded almost an entire magazine into the cliff, and as rocks started to fall, Kelly ran back to help Fred up. The alpha tried to run back towards Blue team, but Linda shot once again and hit the stinger, swinging it towards the cliff and embedding it into the rock from the power of the shot, holding it in place as a rockslide fell around it. As the dust settled, a black mist wafted out from underneath the rocks, signaling the alpha was dead.

Fred's left shoulder had been dislocated from his hit, and he had decided to wait to relocate it when medical help was closer since there was a low risk of him needing to fight on the way back. Once they arrived back at the top of the starting cliff, they waited for the other teams. Team JNPR showed up a mere three minutes after Blue team arrived, and they greeted Blue team with surprisingly warm smiles and congratulations for people they had met only the day before and had accidentally dissed the team leader. Ren walked over to Fred and asked, "do you want any help with your shoulder?"

Fred responded, "no offense, but I'd rather have one of my teammates do it, at least until we get to know you all better."

Ren shrugged, then went to go calm down Nora, as it looked like she was about talk John off the cliff, (literally as well as figuratively). Fred called Kelly over to help him reset his shoulder, he stuck his arm out, and she shoved it forward as Fred rolled his shoulder. The joint popped back into place with a loud crack, and Nora's eyes lit up as she whispered, "awesome" under her breath, Ren remarked, "Hmm, the rolling of the shoulder would increase the short-term pain, but would overall help to heal over the long term, I never thought to try that." While Pyrrha looked on with a concerned expression, Jaune simply barfed and fainted after seeing the unnatural snap and relocation.

"Good job everyone, and I am glad you are all back in one piece." Ozpin said as he addressed the assembled students. Team RWBY had arrived just a few minutes after team JNPR, and CRDL five minutes after that. "The scores and evaluations will be posted this evening via your scrolls, however, ther, will be an announcement on the boards in the main hall 30 minutes earlier. I hope you all enjoy your weekend, and I will see you all on Monday, and students," he said glancing pointedly at team RWBY, "Please don't get into any trouble."

 **AN: I will try to be better about responding to comments, I enjoy hearing what you guys have to say and any ideas you may have.**


	7. Chapter 7

"Yessss!" Ruby pumped her fist in the air, "85, and you were so worried Weiss"

"True, but I wanted an A, that is the grade an heiress is expected to get, either way, we should look at the evaluation." Both girls leaned into the board to read what the board said under their score;

Team RWBY clearly has incredible potential and highly developed combat skill, and their teamwork is surprisingly good for a team that has been together for such a short time. Though they are impressive they need to improve their stealth skills along with versatility. Team RWBY is very skilled with their weapons, but most of their planning seems to take place in the heat of a firefight, which improvisation is an impressive skill, but can't be the only thing a huntress relies on.

"They said we were awesome!" Ruby yelled

"Not exactly," Weiss said, looking over Ozpin standing in the back of the hall, "but they said mostly positive things, and hopefully our team stays top first-year team, even though Pyrrha is still first individually."

Yang walked up having already seen the scores, "Oh stop worrying you, we did well and we had fun, let's go check out how everyone else did."

Team JNPR and Blake were gathered around another board discussing the score as Ruby, Weiss, and Yang walked up. Yang inquired, "how did you guys do?"

Pyrrha looked up, "Blake told me how you guys did, but we did really well and got a 91, there were a few Ursa minors with the alpha and we had to take those out, but otherwise, it went well. Our evaluation just said that Jaune was a good leader, but needed to work on his fighting skills and that everyone else was skilled but we need to find a way to better rely on each other."

Ruby's face broke into a smile, "good job guys, but our new friends just got here, let's go say hi and see what they got."

Weiss stared open-mouthed at the board, "A 100...how?"

Ruby's face broke into a smile, "I knew you guys were good! But wow, how'd you do it?"

John shrugged, "We used an avalanche to crush the scorpion, and we locked the beowolves it was within caves they were sleeping in by blocking off the exits, it really wasn't hard, and I think there was an Ursa, but the girls took care of that." As he gestured to Kelly and Linda who were talking with Blake. "I think they threw dust powder on it and it started sneezing or something, Fred and I didn't really see that part." John looked closer to the board and read:

Blue team is extremely skilled in the use of ranged weapons and thinking outside the box to complete the mission, though they have not had a chance to show their proficiency in melee weaponry, all this has shown they are an incredibly proficient and adaptable team, however, they will have to work hard to compete with the other highly skilled first-year teams.

Ruby looked up at John, "you see that right? You don't seem excited enough to have read it all."

John just looked back at the other members of his team, "yeah, I know, just I didn't really expect anything less from my team, even though this is all a lot to take in."

Weiss looked back at the two of them at the mention of expectations, "finally, someone who understands expectations, I just hope my team will get that soon." Ruby frowned.

John looked at the heiress questioningly, "are you, trying to… impress me?"

"Well, uh— no, no—" Weiss sputtered.

"You shouldn't put your team down in hopes they will understand exactly how to improve, you need to work with them even if you aren't the leader, and help raise your team and yourself above everything else. Only then will you be able to triumph, or at least that is what one of our mentors told us. You should try to learn from it too." John said before turning and walking away. Ruby looked over at Weiss, who was taken aback and said to her, "still want to go to that school they went to, or have you decided to settle for us?" Before giggling and walking towards Yang and Blake as Weiss fumed.

—

Blue team looked up from their tasks around their room to a knock at the door. Ruby's voice came from behind the door, "Um, Fred, you said you wanted some new weapon parts, and I said I would show you the best shops in Vale, yeah well, Blake and I are ready.." Fred and Kelly stood up, then nodded to Linda and John before opening the door just as Ruby started mumbling, "well and Yang doesn't want me going out in Vale without a friend and since Blake was the only one done with homework, she, well, had to come along,"

Blake leaned against the door frame, "plus I want to pick up a few books."

"That's fine, but let's get going," Kelly said, grabbing her rifle and a few magazines of ammunition off a desk and throwing them in a large backpack.

The sun had started to set over Vale as the two Spartans, Blake, and Ruby walked into a weapons shop that Ruby had assured them was, "full of anything you could need, want, or require, (that's the motto)" Weapons gleamed on shelves and racks across the whole store with various parts and ammunition arranged neatly in between. Blake pointed over to the left side of the store, "you should probably find a good melee weapon, they are useful against Grimm and Ozpin said that you haven't shown any proficiency with them, you should prove him wrong."

"Good idea," Fred said, nodding, "Kelly, you look over there, Linda and John gave me a list that I'll fill out. Ruby, can you help me with some of this stuff?"

Fred took a rifle barrel off one of the shelves when his scroll buzzed, it was from Linda, the one to the left. He glanced out the window, and saw a small lens flare on a rooftop at the end of the block, he smiled and grabbed the barrel indicated in the message. Ruby came around the corner holding a pile of parts and weaponry and said, "I think this is it, but how are you going to pay for this?"

"Thanks," Fred said as he piled all of the parts in the cart they were using, "Ozpin gave us an allowance to make our weapons since we don't have any source of income."

"Lucky,"

"Either way, I better get Linda a rifle or she'll flip, the standard issue stuff that Ozpin gave us isn't exactly up to par."

"Oh! Oh! I'll help you pick one out." Ruby said, hopping up and down a little. The pair walked back over to the main display where Kelly and Blake were inspecting some sort of wide headed spear. Blake poked a button along the side and the spear collapsed, thickened, and turned into some sort of shotgun.

Kelly smiled, "oooh, I like that. Fred, did you get everything on the list?"

Ruby piped up, "Yep, know we just have to pick out some weapons for you guys." She turned back around to face Fred, "you said you're good with knives right? Though you might want something else to rely on, like this." Ruby pulled two things off the nearest shelf; a large case of various knives, and bullpup rifle.

Fred took the rifle from her, "hey that looks a lot like something from back home, the BR55 service rifle (Battle Rifle),"

Ruby looked doubtful, "It just came out a few days ago, actually a day after you showed up. So maybe you saw a prototype, but it fires three round bursts and is called the atlesianAR5."

"Yep, that's a BR55 in disguise," he then added under his breath, "how did it get here though?"

Ruby walked over to a display case and eagerly pointed inside, "you said Linda like snipers right? Well, I've had my eye on this one for a while, its a model from a company in Vale, and has a fifty caliber round, six shot side loading magazine, a variable distance scope, and a customizable stock. I mean she would love it, but you could also get it for me, that would be so nice and I wouldn't be mad at all or anything."

Fred said to the shopkeeper, "I'll take it, and Ruby, don't get too excited, by this time tomorrow it will look like a completely different gun. Know we just have to find something for John, wait for a second-" Fred's scroll buzzed and he looked down it was from Linda again; leave the rifle there, and John wants to pick out his own, once you leave we'll go in and grab the stuff. So go ahead and move on.

Fred looked back up, "on a second thought, we are going to pay but can you hold the sniper for our friends, they are a boy and girl, each about as tall as me, John has short light brown hair, and Linda with blood red hair and bright green eyes." He looked back over at Ruby, "They said that they would grab it after finishing up at the library."

"Oh, sure, where do you want to go next?"

Fred dropped the card Ozpin gave him on the counter as Blake and Kelly walked over holding the spear and a pair of SMGs and set those on the counter. The shopkeeper punched in a few numbers and said, "you just used 90% of your monthly allowance, are you sure you want this?"

Kelly looked up, "yeah, I thought it was going to be closer to 95%, but know John can pick out whatever he wants," she held up her scroll, and Said to Fred, "don't worry Linda told me everything." She then walked up to collect their bags, and whispered to Fred, "10 tangos outside led by a man in a bowler hat, in the alley to the left, they appear to be waiting for something."

Fred started retrieving weapons off the counter quickly, "Ruby, I'd like to head back to Beacon, but something tells me we'll have to make a few stops along the way.


	8. Chapter 8

The four filed out of the store, the bell on the door ringing innocently. There was an arc of people standing outside, each wearing some sort of suit and red sunglasses despite the darkened streets. A man in the center stuck out though, he had bright orangish red hair, wore a white coat, and the bowler hat Kelly had mentioned earlier. The man tipped his hat and sighed, looking over at Ruby, "Hello again little red, I see you have some new friends, I hope you are not counting on only numbers to carry you home safely."

Ruby's face darkened, "Torchwick," she pointed at him, "Hat Man. Will you ever learn?" Blake looked over at the younger girl, "You know this guy?"

Ruby loaded a magazine into her sniper rifle, "yeah, he made a grudge after I stopped one of his robberies, well kind of, but he keeps trying to capture me, but I've got away so far." Kelly had already loaded her rifle and was now rapidly slamming shells into her new spear, "Let's hope that streak continues but, is he a criminal or something?"

The man spread his arms wide and spoke up, "A criminal, I am just someone with his own agenda that some people, mainly the police, little red and the rest of the huntsman and huntresses seem to not agree with. Alright boys, blow them away so we can get this over with." The cronies leveled their weapons just as the four in front of the store leaped into action. Ruby was the first to attack, activating her semblance and flying into combat. Unfolding Crescent Rose she slashed at one of the men, sending him flying, then backhanded another straight back at Blake, who took advantage of the momentum and weakened aura by holding her sword out in front of her as the man impaled himself straight through the chest. Kelly threw a mag loaded previously with the homemade rounds to Fred who slammed it into his new rifle, and quickly unloaded six bursts into three targets, dropping the first two completely but the third being quick enough to duck behind cover after the first three bullets slammed into him. Kelly ran behind the cover and smashed the butt end of her spear into the side of his face, the normally non-lethal dull end becoming a bone-shattering weapon of destruction in her augmented hands. She turned around and discharged the shotgun directly into the chest of another man who had tried to sneak up on her before stabbing him through the neck as he fell forward. She then ran over to help Fred and the others. Fred was facing down two at a time while Ruby and Blake were attacking Torchwick and the final cronies. Fred slashed the first man twice across the neck, before grabbing him and using the body as a shield to block the incoming fire from his friend. The man spasmed and died just as Kelly tackled the other man and snapped his neck with a well-placed jab. Fred stood up, "Thanks Kelly, we should regroup with the others." Kelly nodded in acknowledgment. The Spartan pair ran over to Ruby and Blake who had finished the cronies and were now facing Torchwick, who had run over to the opposite side of the street. Torchwick scowled, then sighed, "at least I can do this part of what I wanted." He pulled out a detonator. Fred's eyes widened as he glanced to each side of the street, where wires ran into the sewers. Linda's rifle cracked from on top of a roof from down the block, but it was too late, and a fireball engulfed the front of the weapons shop, tossing the Spartans, Ruby, and Blake across the street like toys before knocking them all out cold.

Kelly woke up in a dark room. Once her eyes adjusted, (which was very quickly) she saw that all four of their group were tied to chairs, gagged, and handcuffed. She elbowed Blake who was sitting next to her. Blake's eyes shot open, "Mphh!' She yelled, the terror in her eyes apparent before settling into a calm when she took in her surroundings. Kelly then Proceeded to wake Ruby, and Blake taking the hint, awoke Fred as well. Kelly felt a buzz in her back pocket and tried to get Blake's attention. Kelly then started pointing at the glowing scroll in her back pocket. Blake looked taken aback and confused, furrowing her brow. Kelly sighed, then carefully imitated holding a phone to her ear before once again pointing at her back pocket. Blake's eyes lit up with understanding, and she started to reach towards Kelly's pocket. Once she got the scroll Blake held it out for Kelly to see, it was from John.

We're going to get you out of there. Have Blake hold her hands as far out in front of her as possible then when her cuffs get shot off activate her semblance then work on freeing everyone else, I'll be taking care of the guards.

Blake looked nervous, but Kelly typed into the scroll

trust us

Suddenly a guard walked into the room, he closed the door behind him. A whistle made all four prisoners look up and the guard fell to the floor as blood splattered the wall, at almost the exact same time Blake's cuffs fell off and a shadow of her remained in the chair as she slipped out and started to free the others quietly.

The four quietly slipped out of the room, and Ruby whispered, "We need to stop by the armory to find Crescent Rose and all our other weapons, but mostly just Crescent Rose."

Kelly nodded and ran across the back of the darkened warehouse at an inhuman speed and tackled a henchman who had spotted them and tried to report. Kelly snapped his neck and dragged the body behind a box. Ruby's eyes widened and she said, "Wuw, that was cold, was it really necessary?"

Kelly looked up innocently after disposing of the body and taking the weapon, "They're the enemy, and they attacked and captured us, I think this is justified." Ruby just turned away and moved into the hallway with Fred and Blake.

Once they met up, John had taken out some guards for them and ushered them up to a balcony once the four exited the hallway into another warehouse. They quietly looked down at a scene unfolding in a corner. Roman stood around above a pile of green metal pieces that Kelly recognized with a hint of surprise as Mjolnir armor pieces. Roman was saying to a group of henchmen, "I want all these organized into full sets by the time I get back, or I put you on care duty of our new guest. And you don't want that, do you? Either way, I'm off and will be back tomorrow, I want those armor prices settled and all the weapons organized" He walked out the door with a short woman and what Kelly thought was a parasol.

The three members of Blue team in the warehouse stood behind crates as the four henchmen tried desperately to organize the unfamiliar armor pieces. Each Spartan shot out from behind cover and grabbed a target. The final man was shocked as he was abruptly all alone. He was about to scream for help when he was stopped by a bullet entering the back of his skull and blowing straight out of the front of his face. John said that he would take care of the armor pieces. Kelly quickly agreed and took Blake and Ruby toward the other weapons on the other side of the room. Once all the equipment was collected the Spartans grabbed as much ammo and weapons as they could carry. Blake looked at the three Spartans questioningly, as they were each carrying at least three extra rifles and a bunch more ammunition, and asked, "Is this really necessary?"

Fred grabbed one last rifle and started to walk out before saying, "Yep, asset denial and it benefits us." Ruby shrugged and grabbed a pair of pistols and followed the Spartans, mumbling to crescent rose about how it was still her favorite.

Back at the dorm room, the Spartans quickly fit together the Mjolnir pieces, and they stepped back disappointed. Linda's suit was the only completed armor, with John's almost done and the others with only a few pieces. After seeing what they had, the Spartans pushed all of the armor into their closet. Each Spartan settled into their bunk but before anyone fell asleep, Linda told the others, "While you were passed out after shopping John and I ran some tests and discovered that the gravity here on Remnant is about .75 g. This explains how everyone seems weaker and how acrobatics are so easy and over the top, while also letting the hunters and huntresses use recoil as propulsion, but we'll worry more about that in the morning." Blue team then joined the rest of the city in sleep.

 **AN: I am sorry for the long update time, but I have gone back and edited the whole thing, and ch 9 is coming soon. Please feel free to leave a review.**


	9. Chapter 9

"Hey, John, wake up. Team RWBY is heading to Vale and we're going with, so get up." Fred said from the doorway.

John opened his eyes groggily and got ready. Just before walking out the door, he noticed that Linda was still working at the desk.

"Aren't you coming?" he asked.

She looked up from her new rifle, "Nah, I'm going to work on this and maybe check out the CCT tower for data." She turned back to her rifle. "Also once I'm done with those I'll be providing armored support and scouting out the city for more possible armor locations. Though I should probably try to be back before you guys, I think we should remain anonymous in armor" she added under her breath. John nodded and walked out the door, joining the others.

As the group walked through the streets of Vale, Weiss remarked on how some people would be arriving for the Vytal festival when it started at the beginning of next semester.

"You won't have much time to prepare for the tournament, but with your skills I don't think that will be a problem," Yang told Blue team. "Though if you want to train with us feel free; Team RWBY is prepared to kick butt, and if we have to go through you we will."

John nodded. "The feeling is mutual, and I wouldn't expect anything less-"

He was interrupted as one of the ships coming into the harbor blew its foghorn and let down the gangplank for unloading. The motley crew walked over to a rail to observe the comings and goings of the various passengers and workers. Suddenly, a young Faunus boy came running down the docks with two police officers following him. There was clearly no way the officers would catch him at their current speed. As he turned a corner, the boy stopped and a yellow, glowing version of him ran the other way. The two officers ran after the decoy as the boy turned and sprinted past blue team and RWBY. He turned and winked at Blake as he ran past, but his ease was short-lived, as he collided face first into the butt end of Kelly's spear. Kelly turned away and whistled innocently as the others crowded around the downed figure.

Weiss stepped back and huffed, "He got what he deserved. Freeloading scum."

Ruby scowled. "Weiss, seriously? Not every Faunus is part of the White Fang or out to get you."

Blake helped the boy up. "Kelly, is the casual violence always necessary? That seems to be you and your team's solution to everything."

John walked over and put his hand on Kelly's shoulder. "How else are we supposed to handle a bunch of Grimm and various criminals? Something tells me that diplomacy has already been attempted."

Ruby shook her head. "You have to realize that all those criminals are people and have a story, and sometimes you just have to give them a chance. C'mon Blake, let's take this guy back to beacon."

Linda traced Ruby and Blake's path back to beacon, checking their route for ambushes or anything out of the ordinary. She turned her rifle to survey the docks when her motion tracker spotted someone trying to sneak up on her. She spun around to face this new attacker with her rifle pointing directly at his forehead before taking a look at the man. He wore a grey coat with red cape, each looking a bit messy, as if he barely had enough time to dress himself in the morning. He had some sort of large sword in one hand and was actively taking a swig from a flask in the other. Linda assumed that it was some sort of alcoholic beverage. The man wiped his mouth and spoke with a gravelly voice.

"Hey, you snipers need to stay away from my nieces. I never want to see your crosshairs rest on either of them ever again." He hooked his flask on his belt and raised his sword.

Linda fired as the man ran towards her. His sword flashed and he blocked the shot, but the power from it stopped him for a solid second. During this time, thoughts flew through Linda's mind: Improper extraction, tweak extractor to the left slightly, calibrate scope two vertical notches up, add slight calibration to stock at later time. Her hands flicked and the rifle was ready to fire again. The issues had been fixed. She fired again and the man held his forearm out to take the blow as his aura flickered. With a burst of speed, he was standing within reach of Linda and swiped at her with the large sword. She jumped back in surprise, dodging the strike only to see the sword transform into a large scythe and hook her in. The man pulled her towards him, grunting with the effort of tugging a 750 pound Spartan toward him. He tried to kick the girl as she flew towards him, but she grabbed his leg and flipped him over, throwing him across the roof. Linda turned around to walk away and get away from this angry drunk but froze. Yang, Weiss, and the rest of Blue team were standing on the next roof over.

—

Yang was just about to jump over to the next roof and clobber this giant armored figure that attacked her Uncle Qrow. She had heard fighting on one of the rooftops and didn't want to miss a fight, so she dragged Weiss up the fire escape and onto the roof. Blue Team had followed fairly quickly without saying anything. While the figure had seemed to freeze after seeing she had witnesses, Qrow had caught himself by extending his scythe and digging it into the ground before slowly getting up and walking quietly towards the back of the armored figure. He raised his sword, preparing to hit the figure in the back of the head. Seemingly out of nowhere, the figure dropped to one knee, pivoted, and pulled out her rifle. She fired directly into Qrow's chest, his aura popping with a loud snap. His eyes registered quite a bit of surprise before backhanding her across the face with the back end of his sword. The figure started to fall backwards off the roof, and Yang wasn't sure if the fall was purposeful or not, but it definitely looked controlled. Qrow and the others ran over to the edge of the roof, expecting to hear a loud thud and maybe the figure sprawled out on the ground in the alley below, but when they looked over the edge, there was no sign of her.

Linda was waiting for them back at the room. She stood in the doorway to the closet and upon seeing the yellow flash of Yang's hair, she slammed the closet door shut. She leaned against it and tried to look innocent by whistling and inspecting her fingernails. Ruby opened the room to her dorm across the hall, and said, "Hey Weiss, Yang, Blue Team, can you come here, there's something I wanna say to you all."

"I think that everyone involved today should rethink their opinions on the Faunus, the White Fang are the exception, not the rule." Ruby said, before Yang spoke up.

"But as soon as you left we found a sniper on the roof, down the street, she was super tall, and covered in this armor, we didn't even see if she had a face. And when we saw her she was fighting Uncle Qrow, who, by the way, said he would show up tomorrow. She was supposedly targeting you before Qrow stopped her."

Weiss crossed her arms, "She jumped off the roof after popping Qrow's aura, just as we were about to help. It was probably a White Fang assassin, and that boy was probably an undercover agent."

Blake huffed, "As if. We talked to him before you guys got back and he showed us he was registered as a Vytal festival participant and was certified by Ozpin. Plus, I've seen White Fang members and assassins, and he doesn't act like one."

Weiss stood up. "You know nothing about the White Fang. My family has been at war with them since before I was born. Maybe conditions aren't perfect, but they're improving. This war is costly. Shipments disappearing just make it harder to take care of workers. All the White Fang is is violence. I've had tragedy befall me from the White Fang all the-"

A soft snort, then giggle broke the silence of concerned faces. Everyone turned to look at the source of the sound. Linda had her face buried in her hands, and looked up at the deafening silence her.

"That was a joke, right?" She glanced around at team RWBY's faces. "I hope?"

Weiss was enraged and the others simply wore looks of concern. Linda's face turned dark, descending to a deadly serious glare. She spoke quietly yet forcefully:

"You have no idea what tragedy really is, do you?" Linda shook her head. "You've been sheltered. I'd bet that even if some stuff has happened it has never really affected you or your life much. You've never seen a Glassing, or watched entire cities burn to nothing but ashes and glass. You've never seen a city nuked, innocent lives murdered by the millions—billions even. Your White Fang is nothing like the Covenant, or even the Insurrection. You've never seen a little girl, on her sixth birthday, going out to eat with her parents, and halfway through the meal, a terrorist threatens to kill the entire building, for "freedom". You've never seen her parents try to shield her, and when the terrorist doesn't get what he wants, he sets off a bomb, and the little girl watches as her parents are torn from her." Her voice broke. "They were just trying to have a happy little birthday dinner. And now they're dead. Take your petty tragedy, and get over it."

Team RWBY's faces ranged from horror to concern as a single tear fell from the stoic face of the red haired Spartan. Kelly put her hand on her comrade's shoulder and led her out of the room.

AN: I know this was a Linda heavy chapter, and I hope you enjoyed, though please let me know in the comments if you would like me to focus on a different character or any ideas comments or concerns. Also, if you have posted a review I have responded to most by posting a review of my own. If you would prefer that I answer at the beginning of a chapter or if you like the way I am doing it now please let me know.

Also when I started this story I thought maybe I'll get 50 views if I'm lucky, and the first hour after posting the first 2 chapters I had 54, and know we have about 5,812 views, thank you for the continued support

EN: Sorry about the delayed corrections. I'm trying to stay on top of the editing but last week was finals week, so I forgot. Thanks again for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

"This is the final week before the Vytal festival, and arguably the most important in a huntsman's training career, as it is his first true training mission." Ozpin said as he addressed the assembled first years in the auditorium.

"You all will be embarking on a mission of your choice with your team from one of these options around you," he gestured to the holo boards scattered around the room.

"Each team will be accompanied by a fully trained huntsman or huntress on their mission. This will be graded, but as long as you listen to your huntsman guide and do your best I am sure you will pass with flying colors." After finishing this and handing the mic over to Glynda, Ozpin began to move over to address the second years as he waited for Glynda to explain some of the nuances and rules.

Team RWBY mulled over some of the options open to them on one of the holo boards, with Ruby reading out loud:

"Search and Destroy, hmm that sounds fun, but it's just one dude, so maybe not."

Yang grabbed Ruby's shoulders and spun her around, "That's the bounty board dummy, these of the mission options."

Ruby scratched the back of her head anxiously, "Yeah, uh, I knew that. Totally."

Weiss huffed, "Yeah right. Anyway, I think we should do one of those recon missions on the outskirts of Vale, or even in the dead zone, it looks interesting and we could gather plenty of intel on Grimm movements or possible White Fang bases, after all that seems to be the pattern of what your little excursions are, Blake." Ruby punched Weiss on the arm.

"I told you to stop being mean to her and razing her about that, not everyone's past is perfect."

Yang had already grabbed the mission card and was walking out the auditorium to turn it in so the other 3 girls had to catch up.

Walking out of the auditorium, the four almost ran into Blue team as they crossed the doorway with team RWBY walking through it. The situation quickly turned sour, everyone avoiding everyone else's gaze, still uncomfortable after what transpired the day before, except Ruby, who spoke up as if nothing was wrong.

"Hi, did you guys get a mission as well? Oh, is it in the dead zone?"

John centered his gaze on Ruby. "No and, no. Ozpin wants us in his office, he wants to talk about a mission, but there are special circumstances for us, since we are new arrivals."

"Oh," Ruby said, "And I almost forgot."

She walked over to Linda.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your parents, I know how you feel, I lost my mom not too long ago, and I know this doesn't begin to cover it but, I hope this makes you feel better."

Ruby holds out a small box, it is a dark brown with some colored dots scattered over it, which read " **M &M'S**". (Trademarked by Mars and Murries, I don't want to get sued). Linda held up the box and inspected it as candies rattled around inside.

"Um, Thanks?"

Ruby smiled.

"You're welcome."

She walked off with the rest of her team.

As Team RWBY walked off, Yang pulled her sister aside.

"Did you just give her candy because her parents died when she was six in a terrorist attack? Seriously, Ruby, sometimes think first before you do something, I think it is best if we just give them some space for the time being."

—

"What are these things?" Linda asks, showing the box to Kelly.

Fred pressed the button for Ozpin's office in the elevator as they hopped on. the elevator car started moving as the Spartan sisters thoroughly inspected the box and eventually popped it open and peered inside.

John took a look and said "I think it is some sort of Remnant desert food. I saw a giant empty bag with the same symbol on it in team RWBY's trash."

Kelly popped one in her mouth and after a moment sighed in amazement.

"Aaaaah, that's good. It's like that one time we found those granola bars with chocolate chips in them but better, and without the granola."

John took a couple and tosses them in his mouth.

"Mmm, those are good, Deja would probably flip if she saw us though."

He imitated a robotic voice:

"You are not having proper caloric intake regarding your daily needs and following through with your diet that is scheduled for today."

All four let out a slight chuckle, the Spartan equivalent of a hearty laugh as the elevator dinged.

Linda tried to shove the candy in a pocket before realizing there are none in her uniform.

"Damn uniform skirt— thing."

So she reached over and shoved the box into Fred's front pants pocket as they all stood at attention and walked off the elevator.

—

Blue Team walked in on Ozpin, who was already engaged in another conversation with the man Ruby and Yang called Uncle Qrow, and the one who had challenged Linda on the rooftop. Qrow was yelling something with his arms spread wide.

"You want me to do what? When I said I'd help with this— thing that you do, this is not what I meant."

Ozpin turned to talk to Blue Team as they entered the room, "You requested us, sir— Professor."

"Yes," he said, "I wanted to ask you if you had found out anything about that piece of gear I gave you, and to give you a training mission that is suited to your abilities and knowledge."

John turned his palm up, a signal Spartans use to ask each other for permission, and each member of his team gave a slight nod.

"Professor, we did figure out what it is, but before we tell you, we would like your word that unless we choose to disclose it, the information never goes beyond this room."

Ozpin nodded, "You have my attention, and before you worry about him," he pointed at Qrow, "he can be trusted, and is one of my most capable assistants, please continue."

John hesitated before moving on. "It is part of our gear, a suit of armor designed to make us more powerful and protect us, since having an active aura would not be advisable for us. However it is very hard to operate, and someone who is not fully trained would probably kill themself within thirty seconds of putting it on. And if someone were to survive and operate it correctly they could be a great threat to everyone."

Ozpin pondered the information, and Qrow took a sip of his drink and gave an "are you serious?" look to the team.

Ozpin laced his fingers on his desk.

"I had hoped you would tell me a little more detail, but very well. Here is your assignment: I want you to recover your equipment as fast as you can, as it sounds like a major threat, while also patrolling the city and protecting people arriving here for the festival. After you have recovered your equipment, you can train for the Vytal festival tournament, that is if you want to compete, or take some bounties from the wall downstairs. Either way, I don't want you sitting around doing nothing after you get your property back."

"Understood sir," John replied, "But in the auditorium, you said that each team would be accompanied by a fully trained huntsman. Are we going to have one as our commanding officer?"

Qrow sighed. "That's my job, I guess, but I don't want to be a babysitter. So don't get in my way."

"Yes, Qrow will be guiding you in this endeavor, I want a trusted eye on you four." Ozpin explained.

Fred spoke up from behind John: "Professor, no offense, but your trusted eye appears to be drunk." He pointed to Qrow who appeared to be chugging the remains of his hip flask.

Ozpin took a swig of his coffee. "Yes, I suppose he is, but that is his usual state. You will find him more than capable despite this." He faced the Spartans.

"I expect you want to go get prepared. And I have other matters to attend to; running a huntsman academy and a festival at the same time is not easy. Qrow will meet you tomorrow morning in Storehouse B on the third floor in the east wing. You can use that as your base of operations."

Blue Team saluted and headed out the way they had come.

Qrow turned to Ozpin.

"Wow, they seem just like Atlas kids, no fun an-"

"They may be strange, but I will not have you insulting my students." Ozpin said sharply.

 **AN:Sorry for the long wait, my winter break has been busy and I haven't had much chance to write, but I will try to be more consistent in the future**

 **Also for any of you wondering if the Spartans are out of character, I am trying to base personalities off the ones from the book** _ **Silent Storm**_ **that came out fairly recently and takes place when the Spartans are 15, so yeah.**

 **Here are review responses:**

 **Doomsayigfae: Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to work on updating and fixing things for you guys.**

 **Guest 1: I will try to avoid too many cliches unless they benefit the story, but please tell me if you have idea or what you would like to see.**

 **Night Hunter 533: (I think I already addressed this in an Author's Note, but just in case) This story takes place very soon after Sam died at the beginning of the Human-Covenant War, with the RWBY timeline a little more flexible but starting around vol 1-2**

 **1740: Thanks, I will try to keep this going for as long as I can.**

 **Guest 2: This was definitely one of the more thought provoking reviews, but yeah, I'm starting to agree with you on the Aura thing Maybe I'll try to add in semblances but not have aura in some way, idk. To answer your other question, no, there were no AIs with them.**

 **Guest 3: I would honestly rather have armor than Aura, since it really defines the Spartans, but yes, after thinking it through, Remnant weapons are inferior to UNSC stuff.**

 **Ferox Pretorius: Thank you for the feedback and advice, those were very helpful and I will try to use it.**

 **Guest 4: Ozpin may be underestimating them because they are so young, but he is smart too, so we will see how this plays out.**

 **InfinityGamer104: Do not worry, I have plans to continue this for a while, and thank you for your support.**

 **Guest 5: Well, the new chapter is out so, you should be able to find out**

 **Guest 6: I think the rationalization ties into the Halo aspect, and this works out with some of the later parts of the story.**

 **Guest 7: Do not worry, the armor is a factor, as well as the shock about the militaristic Spartans trying to blend in with the casual Huntsman and Huntresses**

 **Psihopatul: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed**

 **Guest 8: This is made up, I have taken some stuff from the lore for the backstory inspiration. We don't have an official background regarding Linda, however a new comic series featuring Linda comes out I think this January and hopefully we get more info then.**

 **Red October 700: I'm glad you're enjoying it, but writing Spartans can be hard, because you have to think, "Would they know about this thing or custom or slang?" and that they only really act casual when only other Spartans are in the room.**

 **Guest 9: The Halo universe is definitely much harsher than Remnant, even though both contain almost constant fighting**

 **Daniel: Don't worry, there will be more to fights than just Spartans dominating, and part of their dominance at the start is because no one expects much out of them and are unprepared.**

 **ComparedDread12: Yes, it does weigh half a ton, but for the purposes of this story, since Remnant's gravity is about 3/4g Qrow would be pulling 700-750 pounds and not the full 1000.**

 **Guest 10: I'll try to be better about that, and am open to suggestions on how to improve.**

 **Spartan-140: I am doing my best for personalities, as I said above I am trying to base them off the versions of themselves in the canon novel** _ **Silent Storm**_ **when they were fifteen and about a year after this story takes place.**

 _Editor's Note: Hey guys! Thanks again for reading. I hope you all had a great holiday season and are staying warm (or cool if you're in the southern hemisphere). Your continued support is probably one of my favorite presents I've gotten this season. Y'all are great! Take care of yourself as school starts up again. Thanks again!_


	11. Chapter 11

Qrow awoke from his nap in the storage room that Blue Team had converted into a full base of operations. He had watched their comings and goings, and had seen a pattern: Linda and John would search the Emerald Forest and other areas of wilderness just outside of Vale for their equipment during the day, while Fred and Kelly were at the school either training, working on their expanding arsenal of weapons, or taking turns sleeping. Then once night fell, Fred and Kelly would go and search the city while the other two headed back to Beacon.

Qrow joined them on their first few excursions, but found the monotonous searching boring, and eventually just found stuff to do back at Beacon while occasionally helping Blue Team find and follow a new lead. He quickly noticed that there was always at least one member of the team on watch even when they were behind locked doors and the security system he saw them install.

 _Wow these kids really are paranoid_ , he thought

—

John sighed as another of Linda's scans turned up negative. They had found his and Kelly's helmet in the forest but nothing else. He flipped on TEAMCOM and put his helmet in a backpack and wired it to his Scroll.

"I think Qrow is starting to get suspicious, after not seeing Linda on any of our excursions, since we don't want him knowing that our 'equipment' is the armor that he fought on a rooftop last weekend," he said to Kelly and Linda.

It felt weird with Fred not included in the conversation, but he knew that Kelly, who was back at Beacon, relayed everything said back to him.

There were a few murmurs on Kelly's end, then she spoke.

"Fred is suggesting a switch since Qrow has seen John, Fred, and I all present when he first fought Linda, but since he didn't know it was her, couldn't we just put me in the armor and confront him?"

Linda chimed in. "You're sure you can fit in my armor Kelly?"

Kelly chuckled. "Yeah, I wouldn't have it fully calibrated and wouldn't operate at peak efficiency, but I'd fit, though it may be loose in a couple of places."

"Are you sure?" Linda asked, a little nervous, "I don't want you breaking anything."

Kelly sighed after more unintelligible dialogue, "No Fred, we couldn't put you in Linda's armor. And Linda, I'll be careful."

—

Qrow stumbled into the storage room. Kelly was huddled over a desk working on something, a couple sparks flying as she used a small dust-powered cutter. The rest of Blue Team huddled around the table in the middle of the room. Qrow looked over their shoulders to see a map of Vale splayed over the tabletop. John turned to Qrow.

"Sir, could we have your opinion? We've looked everywhere our equipment could've landed, that only leaves a few possibilities, with the most probable that someone took it, but I don't see what somebody would want with a couple scraps of metal,"

Qrow snorted. "You're the first person ever to call me sir.

I swear this whole damn thing is more weird and crazy than normal." He put his hands on the table. "Here, where you guys have been scouting, is the territory of a cult that calls themselves the 'New Chosen', or Chozo for short. Anyway, they are a bunch of tech fanatics; they think that to save everyone from the Grimm, the entire world needs to be covered in machines.

"They're surprisingly skilled and violent, they'll take anything they can get their hands on, I'm surprised you haven't run into them yet.

I'm starting to think I ran into one of their lieutenants on the rooftop last weekend. If you wanna get your stuff back, I recommend moving as fast as possible, tonight if you can, but if you do, I'm coming with you. I don't want my first trainees from Beacon to all die. Fred, you seem to be pretty handy with a blade, so you watch our backs. Linda, I want you trying to find your stuff. John, you're with her on retrieval. And Kelly," She looked up from her desk as Qrow pointed at her, "I want you to get us a ride out of there."

The five filed out of the room after grabbing various weapons and gear. John picked up a fancy new rifle with an underslung grenade launcher, along with a short sword and a tactical knife that he had gotten from Fred's case of knives. Kelly took her spear and the pair of short blades she had been working on and split off to go back to the dorm room, with the excuse to Qrow as "she needed a hotwire kit for getting a ride." Fred started slotting at least 7 different knives into holsters as well as taking his battle rifle. Linda had, as always taken her highly customized rifle, and more curiously had selected a pair of thick cables with hooks on the end, and a pair of rope ascenders. Qrow looked around at all the equipment and shrugged, all he needed was his hip flask and his trusty sword.

—

The team had descended deeper into the factory slums, the fog closing the sky off from view, and the further in they went, the quieter it got. Everyone was nervous; even Qrow's usually slouched, uncaring posture was erect and alert. He had reluctantly agreed to leave Kelly outside the factory district to find a vehicle and to pacify him, they had agreed to give him full access to her Scroll, so he could set up a warning beacon if she got lost.

Finally, the tight alleyways opened up to one large compound surrounded by at least fifty meters of open flat concrete on all sides.

Fred sighed. "Great, know how are we supposed to get in? Anyone who looks in our general direction will spot us if we try to cross that gap."

Qrow sighed, then stopped himself halfway, "Oh yeah, I forgot you guys are new here. Most huntsmen who have had at least a few years of training would know that dust factories need a clean supply of air to properly function, so there is probably a vent or duct of some sort around here."

Fred thought for a moment. "Smokestacks are there on the west side of the building. By your logic, they should be on the far eastern side, to our left about 20 meters." And sure enough, John looked and saw the dust and dirt particles in the air moving slowly towards the area Fred was indicating. The four moved slowly, sticking to the shadows of the large building to their right. They moved slowly and continuously, with no sudden movements, in case there were some particularly alert guards that just happened to be scanning near the air ducts. Once at the grate, a large one, almost 2 meters square, Qrow's blade quickly cut a hole for them, and the four snuck in. The going was easy for the first minute, but once they got past the inner wall of the factory a pair of fast-moving turbines kept the air moving.

Qrow sighed. "There's no way we can make it past that, not with my luck"

Blue Team had already mobilized. Linda took one of her cables and hooked it to the ground as securely as possible before handing the other end to Fred. He took it and after a few moments of thinking threw the hook straight through one of the fans and managed to hook it onto one of the blades of the other one. The line tightened and stretched as the fans tangled it around and started to jam. The hook in the ground started to pull up and detach, just before the hook pried loose the motor and the axle stripped and broke. Linda moved to detach the line, but Qrow stopped her.

"We'll be here all day if you try."

The tunnel soon split into four, with Fred and Qrow taking the center tunnel and John and Linda climbing into the factory above to search for the missing gear.

John and Linda slowly made their way through the darkened halls looking for the armory in the upper floors of the factory. They had to hide as a few members of the cult walked by, one saying, "Brother, did you hear, a team of hunters has been moving further into our territory, do you think they will interfere with our operations?"

The other one responded as they passed the concealed John and Linda.

"Probably, but our leaders don't tell us anything, though if those hunters get too nosy the commanders will take care of them, just like the last few."

The Spartans moved on as soon as the guards passed, slowly working their way towards the center of the factory, where an equipment depot stood, at least according to Qrow.

After passing through many hallways and quietly traversing catwalks, the pair came to a halt. They were near the roof of the factory, with a large open area before them. It appeared to be some sort of packing facility, though many of the machines were turned off and there were still crates piled high everywhere. The whole place seemed fairly empty, though there were a few signs of life coming from the other side of the facility. John and Linda started moving towards the noise, using Linda's remaining hook and cable to traverse the space between the large rafters.

Balanced on a large beam, the pair surveyed the assembled group: a swarm of cultists standing in front of a stage. There appeared to be some more advanced fighters or maybe leaders, standing on the stage near the back, but the real eye-catcher was a man with red hair and a bowler hat. He was speaking, pacing across the stage playing with his cane. John was only able to catch the tail end of the speech: "—If you support me then, and help me with my goals, which in no way will contradict or harm you, I, in turn, will help you, with a treasure trove of only the finest Atlas tech. I'm talkin' weapons, dust processors, walkers, all that fun stuff! But, that day, I need _you_. Thank you." He walked off the stage and vanished into the shadows as the crowd cheered.

As soon as the man left, one of the leaders stepped forward and started a slideshow. It appeared as if they stumbled upon a meeting or briefing of sorts; from the first slide, John could tell it was scheduled to last for at least another 2 hours. The Spartans didn't have that kind of time, as someone on duty would notice the problem with the fan. John wanted to click on TEAMCOM and ask for a report from his comrades, but without a secure comm line, he could give away their position.

Linda tapped his shoulder and pointed, there it was: the armory and equipment storage. It was even marked on the double doors. The only problem was it was 15 meters to the left of the stage and in plain view of everyone there. Time to give Fred and Qrow the signal.

A large explosion shook the building and dislodged dust from the rafters. As it slowly settled to the floor, the cultists scrambled into action. A large group of them ran through the large doors towards the explosion, and the others grabbed weapons and began to fan out to the edges of the shipping depot. The plan was for Fred and Qrow to start picking the loners off and trying to get people to move away from the center to look for them. Meanwhile, John and Linda moved closer to the armory. Most of the guards had moved into the shadows of the shipping crates, heads on a swivel, looking for anything at all, but they made a rookie mistake; they didn't think that the enemy could have already broken their perimeter. They paid for it, just as the Spartan trainers had when they made the same mistake.

John waited for another minute, and with perfect timing. The two cultists guarding the armory were isolated. John jumped down, knife out, and plunged the knife into the man's neck. He was shocked when it glanced off with a flash of aura, he cursed himself. Aura was still new to him. John twisted in the air, and his falling body weight plunged straight through the man's back, his aura dissipating with a slight fizz as his spine snapped. The man's partner turned her weapon on John, but before she could fire, a cable wrapped around her neck and she was yanked up to the ceiling. Linda slid down, and helped John pull the body into the armory. Just as they were closing the door, they heard someone call out.

"There they are! In the armory!"

A group of cultists charged around the corner with weapons drawn. John quickly slammed the door and barricaded it with crates filled with scrap metal and weapons and armor in various states of repair. He pulled out his scroll and called Qrow.

"We're stuck in the armory and have gone loud, but I see some of our equipment. It isn't all of it though,"

"Grab your stuff and get outta there, we can't risk staying longer. Do you see another exit?" Qrow replied quickly

"Yeah, some sort of trapdoor. Linda says it leads to some sort of abandoned subway"

Qrow swore. "The abandoned subway tunnels. I've heard rumors of something big down there. It is still our best bet. Stay hidden once you are down there. I'll gather the others and come get you."

He clicked off. John took his knife and stabbed it through the slit in the door. He heard a scream and grabbed a sword to replace his knife before jumping down the trapdoor after Linda.

Fred and Qrow snuck out of the depot through a window close to the ceiling. They landed in a crouch and started to move away from the compound. Everyone's attention was focused inward to the armory, so they escaped the eyes of most, but not all. Just as they got into one of the alleyways surrounding the factory, loud thumping footsteps rounded a corner ahead of them and a giant figure loomed out of the shadows. Fred did his best to act surprised.

"Who are you?" He asked, but when the figure stepped out of the shadows, the surprise on his face, as slight as it was, was very real.

The figure was wearing his helmet and a hodgepodge of other Mjolnir armor pieces. An unfamiliar voice sounded from within the suit:

"While everyone else is searching in there, I've caught you! Who would have thought the man sent to stop reinforcements would catch the original thieves?" He paused. "You're coming with me."

He reached out to grab them, his movement a little shaky. Suddenly, he was blown over as another suit slammed into his side and tackled the cultist to the ground. Qrow stared in shock as the thing that had tried to attack his nieces had come out of nowhere.

Kelly had moved to attack as soon as it seemed avoiding the cultist would be impossible. She didn't want to damage the armor any more than she had to, so she tried to take this man down delicately. Kelly was about to rip the helmet off this pretender and ask him how he survived more than thirty seconds in the armor, when she noticed a Scroll haphazardly taped to his gauntlet bracer. It displayed his aura, and it was dropping fast, and with every movement, it dropped faster. He somehow managed to swing a fist at Kelly's head, catching her off guard. It hit her with a surprising amount of force, jerking her head to the side as she jumped off him. The man started to stand up and suddenly spasmed. He screamed.

Kelly tried to shut off TEAMCOM as the man screamed in pain, calling out for help, but the suit he was wearing sensed that he was desperate and needed someone to hear, so it kept opening new channels faster than Kelly could close them with Linda's suit not fully in tune with her. She doubled over, clutching her head, as the internal speakers got louder and louder until she couldn't take it anymore and ripped her helmet off, taking deep breaths as the man finally died.

Kelly looked over at Qrow and Fred, she could tell by their faces that the cultist's external speakers had been on.

Kelly regained her composure and turned to her party.

"Fred, come help me get the armor. Qrow, I'm sorry. We've got a lot of explaining to do, but for now, we have to get the other armor and get down to John and Linda."

 **AN: Thanks for reading, I tried to make this one longer as per request, sorry for the late publish but I've been sick for two weeks.**

 **Anyway, a question for the readers who know Halo: Would Blue team be able to create a smart or dumb AI if given all the proper materials? Just wondering, might come into play later.**

 **RWBY questions;**

 **1) Can someone give me a refresher on the Vytal Festival tournament rules? I think I know, but to have it in writing would be nice so I can cross-reference.**

 **2) Is there a passive vs. active aura mechanic where aura is much weaker when the person thinks they are safe, or not?**

 **I was watching the new RWBY season (specifically the episode right before the Leviathan) and Ruby takes a shot at a giant Atlas mech, the camera does a slow-motion shot of the bullet, and well, look at chapter 4 (my prediction/speculation/Headcanon talking about how Remnant shoots the entire shell vs just the bullet itself), my speculation about Remnant weapons and bullets was right. (I got really excited)**

 **So there you have it, UNSC has superior firepower as well as the Spartan's new weapons, giving the Spartans the advantage.**

 **In the future, I will be posting my own sketches of Blue Team's new weapons on my Google+ page because I don't think Fan fiction supports photos. I am finishing this chapter before working on them, so they won't be out as soon as this chapter is.**

 **Here is the link to the collection**

 **collection/8KZLmE?hl=en**

 **you can also find me by searching Spartan L-058 on google+**

 **Also, Google+ will be shutting down April 2nd, so I'll try to find a new place before then, but for now this should work, any suggestions on alternatives would be appreciated**

 **Review Responses**

 **CT7567Rules: I have tried to write longer chapters, and I will try to extend the length in the future. And I don't want to give anything away, but a vehicle might come into play later.**

 **Psihopatul: I'm glad you enjoyed, and I'll try to keep the chapters coming. I do have a plan for at least the next 5 or so chapters, and you have this one so I hope it answers at least some of your questions.**

 **Also another thing: If Blue Team were to enter the Vytal Festival tournament and win the first and second round, who do you think would be in the doubles fight, and who in the singles? Leave your thoughts in a review.**

 **I am personally thinking Kelly and Fred in the doubles, and maybe Kelly in the singles, still not sure. I want to hear what you guys think.**

 **Thanks—L-058**

 **I also thank my editor Callisto, she has been a huge help, and the quality of this story would be a lot less without her.**

 _EN: Aww thanks. But to be honest, it wouldn't be that much different. I don't have a degree in English or anything. I might have missed a few things last chapter, so I'm sorry about that. A word to the wise, if you're proofreading something, put on music that's more background so you can focus. It took me twice as much time to edit this because I had ABBA on my playlist and my brain wanted to sing about Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo instead of fixing grammar. To all the folks in having to suffer through the nor'easter in America right now (and anyone who can appreciate chocolate), here's an easy recipe for microwave mug brownies:_ _recipe/microwave-chocolate-mug-brownie-349246_ _The best part? No eggs. You can just eat the batter._

 _Stay rad!_

 _Callisto_


	12. Chapter 12

Qrow remained silent the entire trip back to beacon to retrieve the other armor pieces. He only spoke to point out the nearest entrance to the tunnels. Once the group found John and Linda, who were sitting in the shadows of a partially collapsed station, Kelly simply handed them a stack of armor and said, "Qrow knows, and expects an explanation."

John nodded.

"We're armoring up first. In just the time Linda and I have been down here there have been at least 4 different large Grimm passing by."

The team split into pairs, with Linda going to help Kelly get into her own armor, and Fred and John pairing up to take care of their duties as Qrow kept watch silently, a flask in his left hand and sword in the other.

30 minutes later, 4 fully armed and armored Spartans stepped up to Qrow.

"We have been training for a long time, and have had augmentations that enhance our physical capabilities," John said. "The armor further enhances that. When we first came to Vale, everything was completely new, as we had been isolated at our mountain training camp. What you saw on the rooftop was Linda, since we found her armor earlier, and she was acting as armored support, and Kelly was wearing it recently just now to alleviate suspicion."

Qrow raised his eyebrows.

"All right." He took a swig from his flask. "Let's get moving, Ozpin is gonna wanna hear how you kids duped him once we're out of here."

The group got moving. The Spartans let Qrow pace the group since he was the slowest. As they were moving through a particularly open section of tunnel, the Spartan's audio receptors picked up a faint whistle. Fred stopped for a few seconds as the neural link in his helmet amplified and isolated the sound. It was still unfamiliar, and the closest thing that he could relate it to sounded like rolling metal and pounding feet.

TEAMCOM lit up with each team member trying to alert the others at the exact same time as a blip appeared on the motion tracker. Suddenly, each team member went silent. What each Spartan had thought was just part of the tunnel started moving, and a giant Grimm awoke.

The giant creature lifted its head and stood up; it was so massive that it needed to crouch in the thirty foot high tunnel.

Qrow whistled.

"That's big. I want to say I told you so, but we should probably be running in the opposite direction."

Kelly shook her head. "That would just lead us farther into the dead zone,"

Qrow drew his sword. "Fine, but unless you guys have heavy artillery built into that armor, that thing is not going anywhere any time soon."

The team split, Linda hooked to the ceiling and readied her rifle. Fred pulled his sidearm and got a small dust infusion bomb ready. John had already started moving to flank the beast as Kelly holstered her weapons and prepared to run. Qrow started to bark orders before he saw that the Spartans were a step ahead of him, and he ran to flank the Grimm with John.

Now that the creature was fully awake, Fred got a good look at the thing. It looked almost like a Beowulf, except with longer and thicker arms. The chest and torso were shortened, letting the thing stand at almost full height in the tunnels, but the greatest difference was on the face: it had a bone helmet like other Grimm, except there were no eye holes. Kelly started running to distract it, and its head immediately swiveled to stare at her. It moved suddenly, and a giant arm flung down and almost clipped Kelly's back, just inches from her armored carapace. She made it to the cover of some large rubble and skidded to a stop, The Grimm instantly turned its giant, eyeless head towards John and Qrow, since they had moved to flank the thing and John had started to pepper it with rounds from his rifle. It roared and started to swing one of its giant arms in an arc to hit the both of them.

Qrow seemed to poof into nothingness to dodge the attack and popped back into the light far out of the thing's reach a few seconds later. John had enough time to leap into the air and sail back towards Fred near the where the station remnants were, landing with a loud thunk.

Linda spoke over TEAMCOM: "The thing seems to see by movement, everyone freeze!"

The team froze. The giant Grimm stepped back confused, and began to swing its head from side to side curiously.

Suddenly, it raised its giant head to the ceiling and roared.

As soon as the soundwave passed the five, the Grimm looked directly at Fred, who was currently the most exposed and started to wind up again, before Kelly flew past Fred. As the two Spartans crossed paths, a giant arm slammed down between them.

Linda yelled, "Get clear!"

As the tunnel shook, a pile of rocks rained down and the Spartans dove out of the way. The Grimm's arm was trapped. Fred scrambled up the rock pile and onto the giant arm. He sprinted to the elbow joint and emptied the entire magazine of his sidearm into the joint, breaking through the skin. The Grimm roared again and tried to yank its arm free, but not before Fred threw the bomb into the hole in the flesh.

Linda saw him and swung down from her perch as he jumped off, reaching out to catch him and used her cable to swing him to safety.

"Apparently it has sonar as well," she mumbled, "So no way to blind it."

The concrete chunks trapping the Grimm. It started to rumble and shift as the Grimm struggled to free itself. It ripped its arm upwards and sent pieces of concrete and rock flying.

Kelly's eyes widened under her helmet as the giant slab of concrete flew towards her. Her armor, sensing terror, locked up to offer her the most protection, but the impact still hurt as the slab slammed into her chest. She felt a rib crack as it crushed her to the wall and landed on her leg.

John saw Kelly go flying, followed by a sharp inhale on TEAMCOM. He rushed over to help her, and grabbed the slab of concrete. He strained to lift it, and Kelly was able to slide her leg out from under before he let it slam back to the ground. John looked up to see the Grimm readying for another devastating strike.

He calmly told Fred, "Detonate the bomb."

Immediately, a large bang and bits of rock, chunks of flesh and fur, and heat from the fire dust and earth dust in the bomb radiated outwards.

The Grimm was thrown off balance and its lower arm and giant claw were sitting on the floor in front of it, no longer attached at the elbow. It faded off into nothingness. Qrow dropped down from a perch near the ceiling, trying to take advantage of the now almost defenseless right side. Before he could slash at the neck of the beast, the left arm reached around to grab him, but was left grasping air as Qrow once again seemed to disappear into the darkness and come back even closer than before. He sliced a gouge in the tough skin. Qrow quickly jumped off the Grimm's shoulder; it was desperately trying to swat him. Before Qrow even hit the floor, Linda's rifle spat out 6 rounds into the neck wound Qrow had opened.

The Grimm's head whipped around, trying to decide who to attack next. It showed remarkable thought process and tactical planning for a Grimm when it decided to attack the guy who was trying to chuck a grenade down its gullet. It quickly backhanded Fred, sending him flying back to the wall. But what it didn't notice until too late was the small metal pineapple flying towards its face. The grenade went off, sending shrapnel flying into the Grimm's face plate, which didn't do much more than annoy the thing. However, the explosion of sound and motion, overloaded the Grimm's sensitive ears and receptors.

It clutched its remaining paw to its face and started fumbling backwards. Linda heard the sound from before, much closer now, and finally pieced it together.

"TRAIN!" She yelled as loud as her helmet speakers would let her.

Qrow dove to the wall, and hugged it as close as he could. Linda saw that both Kelly and Fred were against the wall already from the Grimm, but John had moved back towards the center of the tunnel to help her and Qrow. She swung down from her perch just as the train rounded the sharp bend in the tunnel. She lunged toward John; he had already turned around to try to get out of the way, and Linda tackled him from behind, giving them both the boost they needed to get out of the way.

The Grimm stumbled directly into the path of the train, and the machine plowed directly into the stomach of the Grimm, blowing it to black dust.

John breathed a sigh of relief, until he glanced behind the train and saw the giant horde of Grimm pounding up the tunnel.

"We've got to get on that train."

Three acknowledgement lights clicked on and he saw Qrow jump and vanish again, once again to reappear on the back of the train. He reached out a hand to help the Spartans up. Kelly was the first to reach him, despite the damaged leg, but he saw her mic was muted, so she was probably yelling in pain, or at him for not helping her. She ignored Qrow's outstretched hand as she hurtled into the car, crashing into the back wall, turning over and holding her leg.

Fred had quickly gotten up and was starting to get close to Qrow, and he caught the man's outstretched hand. Qrow grunted and strained, but he managed to pull Fred into the car. Once in the car, Fred turned around and caught the cable Linda had thrown, and started pulling her in, John ran over to her, and she wrapped her arm around his center of gravity. John turned and aimed his rifle at the Grimm who were getting uncomfortably close, and emptied an entire clip into the approaching horde.

A few fell backwards, their bodies trampled by their comrades. John turned back around, and helped Linda pull them in.

Once into the car, Fred slammed the door shut and all four collapsed next to Kelly.

Qrow mumbled, "You all need to lose some weight, you're so heavy I almost couldn't pull you in."

The Spartans ignored him. John asked Kelly if she was alright as Linda ran a quick diagnostic on Kelly's armor while Fred stood alert with his rifle.

Kelly unmuted her mic. "I think my leg is broken in—-hssssss—at least four places, running was not a good idea."

The diagnostic finished and Linda confirmed what Kelly had already said, though with the minor correction of her leg being broken in five places.

"I thought you said these tunnels were abandoned," Fred asked Qrow.

Qrow shrugged and swallowed a something from his flask. "They are, I have no idea why this is here. Honestly, we should probably find out why."

The team navigated the tight cars, John leading with Kelly's shotgun.

The group moved cautiously through the cars. It was a short train, but it looked like cars had been detached for whatever reason.

 _Maybe it had something to do with the Grimm following_ , John thought.

He moved to a coupling of the cars and poked his head above the roof level. He saw Professor Oobleck and a what looked like a black corgi fighting two giant mechs toward the back of the train, John was already so overwhelmed by this new world that he didn't even question it. Team RWBY was fighting towards the front. Weiss stabbed her sword into the roof, and a shell of ice formed around the four. He looked past them and found out why, it was a giant steel wall, and they were going full speed towards it. He moved back into the car and yelled at his team to "brace for impact" before his armor locked and the impact knocked him out.

John woke up a few moments later. He checked his mission timer. He had been out for 2 minutes and 13 seconds. John pushed upwards, trying to sit up from having his face planted in dirt. He made a good inch of progress before realizing that he had been thrown out of the train car, and one had landed on top of him. Thankfully, his armor had saved him from being crushed, but since it couldn't lift the train car, he had to find a way out. There was a sliver of light off to his left, so John propped the car up on his back and slowly crawled out from under the car. Once freed, he looked around. No one seemed to be around, but he heard fighting down the tunnel. He quickly checked for FOF tags, and saw one off to his left: Linda was trying to free herself from a pile of rubble.

Linda squinted as light was suddenly shining down on her face, and was blocked again by John as he pulled the last piece of concrete off of her. They each turned to scan for Kelly, Fred, and Qrow, and saw two FOF tags over toward the gaping mouth of the tunnel, towards the fighting.

John sprinted to his comrades. When he got there, Qrow was already trying to help the two Spartans. One of the massive doors sealing the tunnels fallen on them. Linda and John ran over and tried to raise the thing. Their strength, combined with Qrow's aura, managed to throw it off to the side.

They were both unconscious, but it looked like Fred had moved over top of Kelly to protect her.

Qrow glanced over the top of the pile of rubble and saw his nieces and their team fighting. He smiled and turned back to Blue Team.

"Get those two back to Beacon. They look hurt. Having no aura is dangerous, so I'll help Oobleck and the girls here. Now go!"

John nodded. Linda grabbed Fred in a fireman's carry and started running past the hordes of Grimm that had emerged from the darkness. John grabbed Kelly, though more gently as to not harm her already broken leg, and followed, disappearing into the city streets.

 **AN: Here is chapter 12. I hope you enjoy, and as always, leave a comment with any ideas/concerns/questions, and I'll do my best to respond.**

 **I have a big project coming up for school, and probably won't be able to write this for about a week, so next chapter may be a bit longer wait, though hopefully not as long as the wait between 11 and 12 (Sorry about that. I ran into some writers block, but I am back on track and have a plan for the next bit.)**

 **Psihopatul: I will try to follow up on every big plot development, I don't want to leave you guys hanging about any elements of this story.**

 **I've got a plan for AI, but it is going to be weird, but please stick with me on it, though it won't be implemented for another few chapters**

 **I have had confirmation that you have to manually raise aura, via Ozpin/Oscar talking about getting used to "raising aura" and stuff, glad you have enjoyed.**

 **Guest 1: yep, RWBY weaponry has melee advantage, unless you count covenant stuff, but UNSC definitely has ranged advantage, and the Spartans will push that.**

 **Yeah, Mjolnir isn't a good thing to wear unaugmented, it will kill you, fast, reference the novel Fall Of Reach for further info if you want.**

 **Yeah, doubles will be Fred and Kelly, but I still don't have a final pick of the two for the finals, alright poll time**

 **Vytal festival finals, who should Blue team put?**

 **Fred, supposedly best with melee weapons and CQC also knife master.**

 **Kelly, incredibly fast, so fast that she can beat pretty much anyone in hand to hand, even come close to Li, who was the best at martial arts out of all the Spartans**

 **Drop your vote in the reviews**

 **Guest 2: Yeah, you are probably right, but as I said, I've got a plan, it will be strange, but I think it will turn out great. Don't feel afraid to shoot me down if is starts getting too crazy though.**

 **Spartan 626: Yep, writing Spartans is hard, since they can act completely different from any person who has had a normal childhood. I do have a reveal timeframe, but it doesn't commence for at least a couple chapters. Weapons, I am planning on giving a more detailed description during the Vytal festival, also ships, idk yet, I'm not really that kind of writer, and it may be fairly subtle if I do it. If anyone does want to see ships please let me know in the reviews, and why, (the why is important) the only ones I am considering at the moment has already been hinted at, and isn't really confirmed or anything. So see you next time, I'll try to be on a better writing schedule this time, and hope to have a new chapter out for you guys soon,**

 **Estimated release near the end of March, maybe earlier though, I'll have a lot of time to write on spring break.**

 _Editor's Note: Howdy folks! Like my friend said, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and sorry about the wait. It's partially my fault because I've been too busy to just sit down and edit (and editing on mobile is really inconvenient). When I did sit down to edit, I fell asleep halfway through because I've missed so much sleep, so if there are any mistakes, I'm sorry. But like he said, there (most likely) won't be another lull like this in updates. I've seen the outline and let me just say, y'all are in for a trip! Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely week and we'll see you at the next chapter!_


	13. Chapter 13

The elevator dinged as Blue team stepped off and into Professor Ozpin's office. They had each changed into school uniforms, except Kelly who was wearing the bottom half of her armor with the top half of her uniform since her leg would be best healed in the protection of the Mjolnir, especially because of the ability to lock the leg and use it as a splint.

Qrow was once again already standing next to Ozpin, and he motioned for the Spartans to begin their story as Ozpin quietly folded his hands across the desk and nodded.

John answered, "We have been training to fight for eight, going on nine years, some of which has been military operations. Our training area is a secluded mountain outpost where we have three main trainers, with more occasionally showing up for a period of time to help or take part in exercises. We received this armor," he pointed to Kelly as she pointed at her armored legs and held up a helmet at the same time, "a few months ago and have been using it almost nonstop. It does take a lot of training and getting used to it, and can be very dangerous to someone who has not had said training."

Ozpin quietly digested the information, before motioning for John to continue.

"When we first arrived here, we woke up with only our under suits and Fred's knife, then we got to you, and went through your school. When we went to buy our weapons, we were kidnapped by a criminal, quickly escaped and took some of our armor from him, and continued looking, while Linda covered us since she had the only full set, and eventually found the rest, some scattered around, and some in a tech fanatic stronghold, we eventually made it back to beacon, and here we are now."

Ozpin once again sat quietly as he pondered, and finally said, "Qrow has filled me in on the other details, I'm honestly surprised that you weren't injured more. Killing an ancient is no small matter, and without an aura, and escaping with some bruises and one broken leg. I dare say that you four are very, very lucky."

John nodded, "we make our own luck Professor"

Ozpin inclined his head, "is that so," he reached behind his desk, pulling out four small cards, "these will let you get anywhere in the Vytal festival, I want you four to be my silent eyes, Atlas has brought in an incredible amount of military, and I'd rather not rely almost entirely on robots and very excitable teenagers as the only protection, many of which can be hacked or easily distracted. You can still participate in the tournament, but I want you anonymous, and once your matches are done, you are surveying everything, and reporting directly to me, via this scroll ID,"

he handed John a number, "As much as this may seem abrupt, but you seem to be my best option, as you have shown that you can be subtle, many don't know about you, and you are very professional." John nodded, and Ozpin waved his hand, "dismissed."

Kelly went back to the storage room to stay there until she was feeling good enough to take off the lower half of her armor, and the rest went back to their dorm to hopefully get some rest, without looking suspicious.

Team RWBY was gathered around Blue team's door, Ruby knocked for the fifth time, "Hello? Are you guys in there?"

Weiss huffed, "they are probably still off on some mission from Ozpin," she mumbled to herself, "how come they get special treatment? They've been here for like a week."

Yang peeled her younger sister off the door, "they are probably getting their beauty sleep, it's probably best to just leave them alone."

Ruby pouted and turned to look at her sister, "I just want to make sure they're ok, they're still— Oh, um— Hi guys."

The other three turned around to see who their leader was talking to, and saw three members of Blue team staring right back.

Ruby smoothly transitioned into conversation, while Blue team looked like they would much rather be on the other side of the door.

Ruby smiled, "how was your mission?"

John started to answer, "It was a success, but Kelly was hurt,"

Yang looked concerned, "Is she okay? What happened?"

Fred answered, "she is fine, just a broken leg, though she isn't supposed to have visitors outside of our team, sorry, but she should be good to go before the Vytal festival."

Blake grimaced, "Just a broken leg? That isn't exactly small."

John shrugged, "we don't have aura, plus we are all fast healers."

Linda spoke up, trying to change the subject, "how was your mission, I've heard it involved a train and lots of destruction."

Ruby looked down and grabbed her arm nervously, "yeah, there was a train that Roman Torchwick and the white fang were using to lure Grimm closer to the city, we couldn't stop it and had to have a bunch of other huntsman come in to help us fight off everything and seal the tunnels back up." Her face brightened quickly, "but other than that, it went really well, and we stopped him in the end, so that's good."

Yang looked closer at the Spartan's faces, "Are you sure that you guys are ok? You look like Blake, that is that you haven't slept in a few days."

Blake scowled at Yang, who simply grinned in response.

Linda waved off the question, "It's fine, we've all had at least five hours of sleep in the last three days."

Yang's eyes widened, "That is not fine, it is very unhealthy, both for you and your looks, I should know." She flipped her hair as the rest of her team sighed, "Anyways, off to bed with you three." Blue team suddenly found themselves being shoved towards their dorm and a few seconds later, seemingly defying the laws of reality were in bed and the four girls poking their head through the door,

"G'night." Ruby whispered as she clicked off the light.

Linda sighed and sat up as soon as the door closed and locked, saying to Fred and John, "alright, who is on watch," only to find that both boys were asleep.

Linda tried to stay awake, doing her best to keep watch, _that's my job as team scout and sniper, right?_ She told herself, before stumbling through the check of their security system, and falling on the nearest bunk and promptly nodding off.

Linda felt the sun on her face, lancing down through her dark red hair and into her eyes, shaking her from her slumber. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked around groggily, until she realized where she was. In her tired stupor last night, she had fallen asleep on John's bunk and curled up by his side, she quickly stood up and zipped over to the other side of the room, thankfully, she thought, John had no idea, he was still completely out. She looked to see if Fred was up yet, and her breath caught when she saw he was just to her left, and making coffee. Fred's voice was flat and steady, with a tiny hint of that dry humor she knew he had, "I didn't see a thing." He said, Linda responded darkly, she tried to put as much threat and malice into it as she could, "You better not say a thing, this never happened, and Kelly never even gets a hint, understand?"

Fred, level headed as ever said, "what thing? As far as I'm concerned, nothing out of the ordinary happened, why would I say anything? Now if you don't mind, I need to check on Kelly." He turned and walked out of the room, holding two cups of coffee.

Kelly wrapped a blanket around her armored legs when she heard footsteps and the door starting to open, just in case, even though it was probably just one of the other Spartans checking on her. Sure enough Fred emerged from the doorway and walked across the room to her little station that she had set up earlier to work on weapons, sleep, and do whatever without having to move much.

Fred set the one of the cups of coffee down, "I wasn't sure if you wanted anything in it, apparently, team RWBY all have at least a spoon of sugar dumped in, and I didn't want to assume, so here," he set down a pile of cream cups and sugar packets.

"Thanks, but I don't know what to do with all that." Kelly said,

Fred sat on the corner of the desk, his own cup in hand, "how soon do you think we can get you out of that?" He pointed at her armor locked leg.

Kelly huffed, "I was waiting for one of you to come down here so you could take it off, I think I'm ready."

Fred nodded, but made no move to help her, "Great, I'll come back this afternoon,"

Kelly sputtered, "but—what? I said I'm ready now, Qrow even came by and dropped off a splint he got from the medics,"

Fred shook his head, "I know you Kelly, just take it slow, you want to be in the Vytal festival right?"

She sighed, "yeah, you're right, but I'm not waiting longer than I have to, you are staying in here with me,"

He laughed a little, "Fine, but were doing something useful, we are working on weaponry,"

Kelly raised her eyebrows, "what are you waiting for, go get them Mr. productive."

Fred stood up and walked over to a shelf and started grabbing tools. Suddenly the door creaked, both Spartans had sidearms pointed at the door almost instantaneously, only to see a reddish black head poke through.

Ruby looked up thinking she was undetected and saw the barrels of two pistols pointed at her face, and eeeped. Kelly and Fred holstered their weapons, Kelly had managed to throw a blanket over her armor by her bunk, and the others were already covered.

Kelly spoke up, "Hi Ruby. Can you please leave?"

"But I just got—"

Fred leaned in close to her ear, "Kelly isn't wearing pants"

Ruby slammed the door shut, and continued speaking, "Sorry, sorry, wait a minute— yes she is! Fred, they are green armored and they look cool and match her green armored shoes," She paused, "Wait—Does that mean?" A sharp inhale came from behind the door as Fred yanked her inside.

Fred's voice was deadly serious, "This stays secret, you tell no one, and before you think of telling Ozpin and your Uncle, they already know, but no one else hears. Got it?"

Ruby nodded solemnly, but she launched right back into a monologue, "I was trying to find you, and nobody answered when i knocked on your dorm, I'm assuming Linda and John are still asleep," she paused expectantly, and the Spartans just shrugged, "Anyway, I'm here to ask For Jaune's and Pyrrha's clothes back since we are planning to get some clothes for you today to add to the others from last weekend, which brings me to my other point."

She inhaled deeply, "We are having a party for pre-Vytal festival, it's technically a school dance, but Coco and Yang are in charge, so that will end up exactly how you would expect, but we need help, and formal wear for you four, because you are coming and have no choice in the matter, even if it is just for half an hour. Can any of your team do anything to help?"

She darted around each of the Spartans, inspecting them as rose petals fluttered around, "Hmmm, you are definitely strong, Fred, you are on tables and chairs, Kelly, you're fast right?" Kelly nodded, "Good, you are running errands if anyone needs something." Kelly added, "I think Linda mentioned something about being able to bake, though that was a long time ago."

Fred muttered something, "Just don't make any lemon squares—," the rest of the sentence was unintelligible

Ruby looked up, "What?"

Kelly shook her head, "Don't ask."

Ruby just moved on, "Alright, I'll give you two some time to get the laundry, change, fetch John and Linda, and meet us in the library. Got it? And don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

Fred had grudgingly helped her get the Mjolnir off and put the new splint on. Kelly had enjoyed being back on her feet, even if it was just to go shopping, but at least they weren't fighting for their lives. John and Fred had been quickly taken by Ren as he took them shopping for suits

Kelly and Linda were carried along almost literally by the girls from combined teams RWBY, JNPR, and CFVY as they took them to get dresses. The Spartans basically stood still as the other flurried around them, debated, and compared all the dresses. Kelly looked back and realized it was all a blur, and now she had a pair of fancy sandals and an orange and red dress.

She still much preferred jeans and a T-shirt, but might as well humor everyone, after all she wouldn't want to stand out any more than her height already made her. She remembered something about Linda ending up with a light blue dress, something about it going well with her hair.

Kelly shrugged off the thought, walking back into the ballroom carrying a large stack of napkins and plates, before handing them off to Nora and walking over to help John with moving a giant table.

It looked like everything was done, and Kelly started to get her teammates so they could go have some time to themselves before the dance as the four Spartans turned to walk out the door, they found their path blocked by team RWBY.

Weiss spoke first, "Blue team," she inhaled, "We need last names, they can be made up, but 087 and 117 aren't going to cut, as we need to be able to introduce you to people."

John tried to avoid it, "We already told you, those numbers are basically our last names,"

Blake crossed her arms, "You aren't leaving until we hear something,"

Kelly's mind was racing, _we could supposedly have two of the same last names, but who? I'm basically John's sister already, it would be easiest to remember names based off people we know, how about.._

She spoke, "Halsey, Kelly Halsey, John Halsey, Frederick Mendez, and—"

Linda interrupted, "Linda Pravdin, I remember that much my parents gave me." She looked down, embarrassed. Team RWBY stepped back, as Blue team trudged up the stairs.

The dance put all the Spartans on edge, the sheer amount of people and noise and things going on was overwhelming, they spent their allotted thirty minutes standing on the balcony overlooking the emerald forest, staring at the unfamiliar constellations, and trying to sound nice and polite whenever one of team RWBY introduced another person to them.

A little later, Jaune and team JNPR had their synchronized dance, and they slipped out quietly to the roof of the school and enjoyed some quiet time, and each other's company.

"What do you mean they left?!" Yang yelled at the other members of team RWBY, "They are literally a head taller than everyone else here, how can they just disappear?!" She sighed, "It's fine, just enjoy yourselves."

Team RWBY dispersed into the party and on top of the building, the Spartans sat quietly, and relaxed for one of the first times in a long time.

 **AN: Hope you all enjoyed, next is THE VYTAL FESTIVAL, I've been excited to write this part for a while now, but we will see how it goes.**

 **I think the Spartans are getting a little out of character at this point, but I'm doing my best to reinforce the, "casual around other Spartans and reserved around everyone else, and very serious during combat" aspect of them, but you know artistic license and plot development, so they are a little more social than normal.**

 **I am thinking about writing some prologues for a couple of stories to see how they do, but this one will still be my main, anyway which would you rather see first for a prologue/story concept**

 **Halo x Star Wars, it follows a few Spartans who "died" during augmentation but when ejected into space during burial, suddenly awoke and came back to life, and are sucked into a slipspace anomaly where they are transported to the SW universe, and "adopted" by a pair of mandalorians, and goes from there.**

 **Star Wars showing a faction that split from the Old Republic Sith empire, and is lead by a Chiss female that was a former imperial intelligence operative, and ends up isolating themselves, but their leaders are lost in a crying accident, but comes back during the rebel/empire era, and has to fight back as the fighting is threatening their way of life**

 **Titanfall x Halo It follows noble six as he is taken from reach and brought to the frontier, where he meets the six four after trying to fight a group of imc then there is backstory and reveals about a version of his past, and it goes from there.**

 **Leave what you think of each of these in the comments, and thanks to Spartan-626 for help with the first two ideas.**

 **Review responses:**

 **Spartan-626: Here is more, as always thanks for the support, and I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for the ideas once again.**

 **Red October 700: Spartan armor functions from a neural connection, usually by implant, but the reason the Spartans can wear it is because they have the focus and discipline necessary, as well as the augmented frames so the armor doesn't tear them apart if the movement is slightly emphasized to much, so the cultist had his aura draining slowly when he was focused and on task, but as soon as he was surprised, he started losing it.**

 **As for shipping, I don't know if you've figured it out, but it is much more obvious in this chapter, also Ruby is going to have a big role with the Spartans, mainly because she's the one who goes out of her way to be nice to everyone and is always understanding and just generally cares about her friends. Yes, sibling type/good friend relationships will be a factor in the story, as the family theme is usually present for Spartans, and maybe this will help pull team RWBY together, kind of like what happened in late vol 5 and 6**

 **1740: I'd like to add in other Halo characters, but I just don't see it working well with the plot I have laid out, though maybe one or two might work, you'll see.**

 **PS: My editor is really busy this weekend, so this has not been seen by her, once she edits and leaves her note, I will update the chapter with her changes. So I apologize for any mistakes that appear**


	14. Chapter 14

The crowd roared as another blow landed on one of the fighters in the ring, her aura dropping another notch on the giant scoreboard.

Blue Team remained silent in their perch high above the stands. Even though the shot was impressive, they risked detection at the slightest sound as they hung from cables directly above one of the many security stations near the top of the stadium. Though they had to worry about sound, the Spartans were protected from any curious eyes by a giant stadium light directly below them.

The teams in the arena seemed fairly evenly matched, with Team RWBY on one end, and another team John didn't know on the other, though he thought they were from Mistral.

Team RWBY looked like they were making some mistakes, but John thought they were doing well, though the other team was taking the advantage. The tide seemed to turn as soon as Blake managed to bait one of the opposing team members out of the arena using her semblance. It gave Team RWBY valuable room to maneuver, something that John had noticed they needed to function at peak efficiency. This strategy allowed them to work together extremely well as long as they outnumbered their opponents, but wasn't nearly as useful against larger groups, especially when separate.

The rest of the match proceeded exactly as John thought it would, with Team RWBY teaming up to take down the remaining foes with flair and efficiency, (for the most part) They moved to descend as their fight was next, and carefully picked their way down to the preparatory rooms to call Ozpin that nothing unusual had happened.

Blue team had to check their equipment through a couple of inspectors to make sure the weapons they wielded were up to code.

Linda carefully set her sniper rifle down on the pad as the tech carefully looked it over, (Think the Kraber from Titanfall 2 with some elements of the halo sniper), followed by a simple sidearm and a more unorthodox set of climbing axes. Their sharp edges and hard angles contrasted with the smooth lines of the sniper, the axes also had a cable that ran from the base of the axe to an attachment on her armored gauntlet.

The old woman who looked more like a librarian than a weapons tech looked up from her inspection, "I've never seen a loadout like this before, but it is all up to code, and very well cared for, good job young lady."

Linda nodded, "Thank you Ma'am." As she took her weapons and walked to the platform that would raise them to the playing field, before running her final checks and waiting for the rest of her team

Kelly was next, she sat down two exact copies of the sidearm that Linda had, and her spear, currently in the shotgun from. The tech took the spear holding it up to the light, and watching as it transformed.

She mused aloud, "Short range gun, long range melee, seems counterintuitive, but you are good."

Kelly took the weapon, "I find it works just fine for me Ma'am," as she followed Linda.

John moved to put his weapons down on the table, and the tech picked them up, only looking at the sidearm for a second, before spending not that much longer on the assault rifle that John had modified to be close to his chosen weapon from back home. She picked up his sword that he had collected from the stash at the fanatics' hideout,

"Hmm, a sword breaker, she ran her finger up one of the blades of the two pronged weapon, (think a steel version of the energy sword, but with the hilt of a normal sword.) I haven't seen one of these in a long time, they used to be illegal for these games, but they were forgotten in the most recent update of the rule set, and it is legal, so," she smirked, "go wreck em honey," John saluted and took his weaponry.

Fred stepped up, placing his rifle and an entire bandolier of knives, 10 to be exact. The tech just raised her eyebrows, he smiled sheepishly behind his helmet as he withdrew a giant Bowie knife from behind his back as well as three throwing knives, sparkling against the examination table's light.

She continued, "All of them,"

Fred pulled another pair that were concealed in specially made slots along the sides of his helmet.

The tech pulled one from the bandolier and flipped it expertly in her left hand as she ran her gaze over the others.

"Everything else looks good, this one, I see the shrapnel explosive in the hilt, sorry that is against the code, but I admire you, that is one I used long ago. Won me my first ever Vytal festival."

Fred nodded, then started the long process of re-sheathing all his knives as he walked to the arena floor.

Team RWBY was about to walk out of the arena to celebrate their win and get rested enough for the next fight, but Ruby turned around because she was curious about the next fight.

"Hey guys, you might want to see this next one." Ruby said as she saw what was on the board.

The others turned around and paused, Yang looked surprised, "is that—the chic who fought uncle Qrow on the roof?"

Weiss squinted down towards the arena floor, "yeah, yeah it is,"

Yang smiled, "I wanna see this fight, I can't wait to see her get whooped."

Ruby facepalmed, "you don't even know her, maybe there was another reason to be on that roof, besides I just want everyone to do well."

Team RWBY moved back to the seats they had sat in earlier, and the woman who was sitting with Emerald and Mercury, who they had met earlier, smirked, "back so soon? Was the festival too much?" Yang thought she was making fun of them, but the tone was too even keeled for that, so Yang just ignored her and sat down.

Kelly knew the crowd would be huge and loud, and had changed her audio reception to compensate, but the experience was entirely different to what she was expecting, and almost overwhelming. With the cheering from all sides, and all the people, all looking at her. She took a deep breath and focused on the team that had ascended opposite to them.

One girl was wearing a tight bodysuit and a full helmet that gave her a faceless appearance, covered by a sandy colored cloak that was split at the waist to allow for mobility, and in her hands, cradled a large sniper rifle, Kelly glanced over to Linda, and saw her and the other sniper had locked gazes and were having an intense staring contest as they analyzed each other.

Kelly moved on to the next target, or targets, as she saw the next two guys looked almost the exact same. They both wore all black garments, and had leather wrapped around key points as light armor. They each had a sword attached to their belt, though one was on the left side and the other on the right, she was betting that their strategy was to flank an opponent and force them to block attacks continuously and tire themselves out, before moving in for the kill. Kelly looked closer at the hilt of each sword, and saw a trigger mechanism on each, _great, it's also a gun,_ she thought to herself.

Kelly looked at the third competitor, and looked shockingly upwards, he was taller than her, taller than John, he was probably bigger than Jorge. The giant of a man wore armor obviously styled from a samurai, and sported a giant greatsword to match, it was at least 4 feet long, and he hefted it with ease. Kelly shook her head.

John's voice came over TEAMCOM, "Kelly, can you handle the big guy, at least for a while, you're the fastest and something is telling me he is on the other end of the spectrum," Kelly flashed her acknowledgment light.

"Fred, I want you and me to take out the ninjas, and Linda, mirror the enemy sniper, she'll probably break for cover and try to pick us off as we are busy with her friends, I know this will be tough, but make her think she has the advantage on you, that will keep her focused on you and not us. The big guy will probably try to split us, so Kelly keeps him off Fred's and my back and we stay together.

Three acknowledgement lights winked on.

An amplified voice broke through the roar of the crowd as Professors Port and Oobleck activated the mic in their announcer's booth, "well Oobleck, we have some interesting contestants for this fight, we've got some very experienced veterans on one side, and on the other, mysterious newcomers that appeared last minute."

Oobleck spoke up, "why yes professor, the team from Mistrel won the previous Vytal festival, though they did have to replace two of their members. First of all," the board showed a picture of the sniper's hood and helmet, giving no clues to what the girl beneath may look like, "we have Caroline Teale, one of last year's winners.

The samurai helmet of the big guy was next, "Chi No Aka, which I believe translates to Blood Red, a very imposing name if I do say so," next were the two ninjas, "and the two newcomers to the team are the brothers Droz and Davis. Together they make up team CCDD, (Chilled)"

Port cleared his throat, "And on the opposite side of the Arena we have our mysterious strangers, Preferring to not give us last names, but oh well, I'm sure reporters will figure out who or what these mysterious fighters are in less than an hour after this fight."

The screen flashed to John's helmet, and Oobleck quickly said, "here we have the team leader, Sam," next was Linda's helmet, "the sniper, that is the one holding the giant rifle, Naomi," after that was Kelly's helmet, the visor being full face, made her stand out a little more from the others, "Adriana," Kelly winced inwardly at having to use the other Spartan's name, but it was necessary to make sure no one connected them with the strange Blue team that showed up suddenly.

Oobleck continued, " and last but not least," the screen showed Fred's helmet, "Kurt. Together they make up team SNAK (Snake)."

Port took the mic, "and now, we are selecting the terrain for this battle that is sure to be memorable, as all battles in the Vytal festival tournament are."

Holograms flared up around the arena, flashing with symbols like a slot machine. The side behind Blue team dinged and the holograms stopped on some sort of small building surrounded by flat ground.

The holograms on the other side of the arena also stopped, showing some sort of craggy rocks.

The metal around the edge of the arena opened up, leaving only a small platform for the two teams to stand on as terrain rose up to fill in the rest of the arena.

Behind Blue team a small building rose up out of the floor, it was simple, consisting of a few cube like structures mashed together to form a solid, if not very good looking, building, it was surrounded on all sides by shallow sand dunes on solid rocky ground, giving areas of sure footing directly next to unstable sand. Behind Team CCDD sharp grey rocks rose up, offering plenty of cover, but restricting movement.

Port spoke up again, "AHA, the outpost and the crags, now that is a new one. Our contestants will have fun with that,"

Oobleck started a countdown, "Teams ready?" Everyone nodded, "3,—2,—1,—FIGHT!"

The sniper, which Blue team had designated target 1, vaulted over a rocky ledge and vanished from sight, but Linda followed the slight sound of the flapping cloak as the girl ran for a new position and tracked it, before moving behind the outpost and clinging to the wall with one of her axes as she peered around the edge of the building with her rifle.

A lens flare caught her eye and she ducked away, just as a whistle sounded and a bullet zipped by where her head had been just a second before, _she's good,_ Linda thought, _but she hasn't faced a Spartan before._ A slight smile crossed the red-haired Spartan's face behind the impassive mask of the helmet as she poked her head out in the exact same spot, and started teasing the other sniper to keep her occupied.

Kelly looked up at the big guy as he swung his sword downwards at her, he was surprisingly fast, but not fast enough as Kelly darted away, the giant man turned and started to walk over to the others who were fighting over on the other side of the arena.

Kelly murmured to herself, "ah, you aren't going anywhere unless I let you." She jumped up and stabbed her spear down into his armored back, it stopped a few centimeters away from the armor plate, his significant aura stopping the spear in its tracks. Kelly cursed as she saw his aura barely drop at all, and as he turned to look for the threat she pulled the trigger and jumped off his back, using her momentum and the lowered gravity to flip over his head and fired another shot into the snarling mask on the helmet. He stopped, finally seeming to consider Kelly a worthy opponent and raised his sword again and brought it down with the same crushing force as Kelly dodged out of the way again and tried chip away at his considerable aura.

Fred ducked another sword swing as John deflected the other brother's sword with his own, he thought one of the Spartans could easily take one of them in a one on one, but their teamwork was crazy good, and had both the Spartans unable to attack from the relentless slashes and stabs. Fred was currently against the right-handed brother, designated target 3, and the spartan told John, "Switch,"

An acknowledgement light came from the team leader.

John lowered his head, and Fred spun from his target, vaulting over John and using his back as a launchpad to send a knee flying into the left-handed brother, Target 4, knocking him back and giving John some space to isolate target three.

John emptied half his clip into the boy as he came charging at him, before swiftly uppercutting him in the jaw and sending him back towards Fred and target 4 taking his aura almost down to the defeated line.

Fred had managed to chip away at about half of target 4's aura with volleys of throwing knives and the knee to the face when target 3 regrouped with his brother and the two Spartans were put back on the defensive, blocking slashes and stabs relentlessly.

John gave the command to Linda, "take out the sniper, then help Kelly get the big guy so we can take out these two, feel free to use the big gun on him." Another chorus of acknowledgement lights.

John hoped the girls would be quick, as he felt himself and Fred slowly getting pushed back into the uneven footing of of one of the sand dunes.

Linda heard the command she had been waiting for, and cracked a smile underneath her helmet and she pushed the scope of her rifle around the side of the building, letting the link she had installed directly broadcast the scope's image into her helmet. The sniper had relocated once again, moving closer to Kelly and the big guy. Linda took a moment to aim and compensate for the reduced gravity of Remnant, before hooking one of her axes onto the lip of the building and stepping back.

She sprinted forward and launched herself over the top of the building.

Linda heard the crowd gasp, then a loud, whoooooooaaaaah, as she flew over the arena. She aimed her rifle and waited for the sniper's back to be exposed, and as she flew over the shocked girl, she fired two rounds, each impacting her aura and taking it almost to the defeated line.

The girl seemed more than a little surprised, but she spun around and dropped to one knee, and fired at the flying spartan, hitting her in the side of the helmet, knocking her off course. Linda came to a skidding halt, landing in a crouch among the drags of rock only a few feet from the sniper. Linda sprinted over to the recovering sniper, dodging a knife stabbing towards her neck, before throwing a vicious uppercut into the chest of the girl, launching her into the air, Linda threw one of her axes, and saw it dig into what was left of the girl's aura, and she tugged the cable downwards, sending the sniper face first into the dirt, knocking her out cold.

Linda turned and ran over to see Kelly take a hit from the giant samurai, sending her flying into the wall of the small building, and leaving a sizable dent. Linda thought it would be best to get this over with, the fight had gone on long enough.

She took a giant magazine out from behind her back, the thing was huge, about the size of an encyclopedia. She took the thing and set it where a magazine would normally load into her rifle, and hit a switch on the stock.

The rifle's barrel seemed to split and shift, forming into a much thicker version of itself, and the the chamber and magazine well started moving as well, shifting to accommodate the new rounds being loaded in.

Linda racked the slide, loading a giant round into the chamber, took aim at the samurai, and fired.

Instead of the usual _crack!_ That sounded from her rifle, a deep reverberating **BOOM!** came instead, and the man was suddenly thrown across the arena, flying into the building Kelly had been slammed into before, and completely crushing in the wall.

The man tried to stand, shakily making his way towards the new threat, sword raised, but Kelly stepped in, sweeping his legs out from under him with a well placed kick, she jumped up onto his chest, her spear stabbing towards his chest, and fired her shotgun. His aura popped, and it exploded outward, blowing Kelly back and flooding the arena in an explosion.

Port spoke up from the announcers booth, "and here we have the first activation of a semblance, Chi's dead man's switch, when his aura blows, it explodes, as was evident."

Everyone remaining struggled to their feet. John was the first to recover, and he raised his sword, target 3 started to raise his own feebly, trying to fend off the blow.

John slahed quickly, cutting across the boy's chest and bringing his aura below the defeat line.

Fred had also managed to recover from the blast before his opponent, and threw a volley of throwing knives, cutting through the remains of his aura.

Oobleck suddenly announced, "and the winner is team SNAK! What an upset!"

The crowd roared, voicing their excitement.

The members of Blue Team holstered their weapons, and John offered his hand to Droz, who took it and stood up. Team CCDD regrouped, and stood in front of Blue Team. They saluted the Spartans, and the Spartans returned the gesture, followed by the Spartan smile, swiping a pair of fingers across the visor where the mouth would be.

Team CCDD walked back over to their side of the arena, but Chi stayed, walking over to Kelly, not saying a word, he deeply bowed, once he stood Kelly returned the gesture.

Each team returned to their respective sides, and began to descend to the preparatory levels as the crowd roared its approval.

 **AN: there you go, next chapter. I hope you enjoyed, as always leave a review with any questions/comments/concerns.**

 **The name of the Samurai was simply a google translate thing, so I apologize if I got it wrong, I was running out of names. Also team CCDD is OC I didn't steal them, but Droz and Davis are references to Titanfall 2, Chi is a reference to the Oni Stalker from Tomb Raider, though less dead and insane, and Caroline is a reference to Carolina from RvB, also a RWBY Easter egg from vol 5, where Qrow is standing next to a bounty board and the name Caroline Teale is listed as search and destroy, right next to a Griffin, which I believe is a wife or daughter of one of the RT guys.**

 **Linda's rifle, I figured why not use the mechashift tech that allows a scythe to also be a gun, to make a sniper rifle to be able to adapt to any type of cartridge.**

 **Armor for the Spartans: picture Halo CE remastered armor, but with each Spartan having their own specialization, like Linda's helmet ends up looking like the Operator from Halo Reach with a bunch of bells and whistles, Kelly has a full visor like in 5, Fred's looks a little bulkier, that sort of thing.**

 **Review responses:**

 **Spartan 626: the eyes and ears part should be more relevant next chapter, I tried to take some inspiration from fight scenes of lots of things, stuff from Halo, Titanfall, RvB, and RWBY were the main ones, as well as my own writing style.**

 **As for Ironwood, he will come up, and play a big part, but not till a little later.**

 **ComparedDread12: armor, I think I answered that in the author's note, but picture Halo CE armor but with their helmets from Halo five, for differentiation and because I want to.**

 **red october 700: I might work that in, thanks for the ideas, I know Ruby will probably think it is adorable as well, but we'll see.**

 **As for the Mjolnir, you aren't wrong, and the aura would stop some, but it is a bit of a stretch, but you know, plot armor, he kinda had to survive temporarily.**

 **I have never liked the bumblebee ship either, I think it takes away from the character of both Blake and Yang, there are some good explanations online but the gist of my reasoning is that both were hurt by Adam, and you don't have to have a significant other to take refuge in and stand together, it can be a good friend, a mentor, a parental figure, but I have found that that is rarely explored.**

 **As for John and Linda, there are few ships for Spartans period, the few that there are, John x Cortana (never been a fan of that one after reading the books, Cortana is basically a copy of Halsey, Halsey is basically John's mom…) John x Kelly, (I could see it, but Kelly is basically his sister, and best friend, so idk) and John x Linda, (I can see it in the same way as the last one, but they weren't as close until around when Sam died, (14 years old) which is when this story takes place, plus it seems to just work better, both in canon and in fics)**

 **Lucky rose might work, but I have a hard time placing Ruby in any ships, she's just too innocent.**

 **StormSpartan21: yep, get that gluten free crap out of my face. A friend had me put that in there, and honestly it turned out better than I thought it would**


	15. Chapter 15

Blue team had finished their check of the stadium after their fight, and were about to grab a transport down to the festival itself, when they were cornered by a red ball of excitement.

"That. Was. Amazing!" Ruby squealed, "and Lin— ur Naomi, your gun is awesome, can I see it?" Ruby continued to talk on as Blue team stood silently as the girl continued to babble excitedly, finally coming to a stop saying, "I understand if you wanna stay secret, that's cool, but you should still come down to the Vytal festival with me, and maybe eat something, besides you need to tell my sister and Weiss that you aren't evil, ever since the "mysterious lady from the rooftops" showed up, they won't stop talking as if you are allied with the white fang."

John nodded, a little nervous, "sure, I guess, our next fight isn't for a while, but we also have some responsibilities to take care of."

Blue team hopped onto one of the smaller transports headed down to the festival grounds, and Ruby followed. The group attracted more than a few stares, as each of the Spartans towered over everyone and stood perfectly still in the center of the crowded cabin, standing still as statues.

Ruby led the Spartans through twists and turns in the tent city that had gone up for the festival, and she finally stopped in front of some sort of small restaurant with seating around the edges of the booth. The other members of team RWBY and JNPR were sitting around the bar, laughing at some joke

Ruby ran up immediately, smiling as she re-joined her friends, while Blue team stood awkwardly at the edge of the milling crowd.

John watched as the smiles on the faces of everyone except Ruby slid off, being replaced by mixed expressions ranging from scowls to curiosity, though all seeming unsure to some extent.

Pyrrha started, she looked welcoming but from the rest of her team's faces, John could tell they had heard the story from Yang and Weiss, "Hey, why don't you come over and have a bite?"

Blue team awkwardly walked over, silently standing opposite of where team RWBY was sitting.

Fred started to sit down on one of the barstools, but it immediately started to crack under his weight, so he stood right back up, looking at the others around the bar, embarrassed behind his helmet. Ruby introduced Blue team with their fake names, as well as her own team. The Spartans stood quietly and nodded when appropriate, though they stayed silent.

Team JNPR suddenly seemed to panic, before running back towards the stadium, Ren spurring then on, saying they were going to be late for their 4v4 fight.

Kelly spoke up, the helmet modulating and disguising her voice so it almost sounded mechanical, "it was nice meeting you, but we really need to get going,"

Weiss shrugged and muttered, "probably have to go spy on more people,"

Fred shrugged right back, "actually no, I just really want a corndog."

Ruby nodded at him, "seems fair," while Yang and Weiss narrowed their eyes suspiciously at the Spartans.

As soon as the Spartans moved out of sight John asked Fred, "do you really want a corndog?"

"Yes, but the mission comes first, so let's get moving," Fred replied.

The team split back up, Fred and Kelly going back to the arena to wait for their doubles match, and John and Linda patrolling the festival for Ozpin.

John scanned the crowd again as the two Spartans moved carefully through it. Unlike the others in the crowd, if John and Linda stepped on someone's foot, it would end badly, even though many stayed out of the way of the giant armored warriors they still had to be careful.

Linda continued to cycle through the different vision modes on her helmet, until finally stopping on thermals, which let her see straight through the tent city.

She sent a click over TEAMCOM to get John's attention, "something suspicious, 2 o'clock, 30 feet ahead."

He sent her an acknowledgment light and started moving in the direction she had indicated, striding purposefully towards a tent that was currently appearing empty.

He slipped past the flap quietly as he drew his sidearm, Linda right behind him. The large tent appeared to be some sort of small restaurant, and the Spartans were forced to slow down to navigate between the tight tables while staying quiet, they moved behind a counter and opened another flap, supposedly leading to a kitchen.

John's mind immediately clicked into a threat analysis mode as he saw two people in the room.

One was standing over the other with his back to the door, fists flying as he pounded the face of the other one.

John decided to forgo stealth and ran over to the attacker and grabbed his shirt collar, throwing him down on his stomach. Linda moved quickly and pinned him down with hands behind his back, Linda placed an armored boot on the man's back and pushed his face into the dirt.

John rushed over to the woman on the ground, helping her up. She opened her eyes and saw her almost robotic helpers and almost screamed, "wait," she said, her brow furrowing, "you're those fighters from the tournament,"

John nodded, then moved on, "what happened here ma'am?"

The woman spoke up, clearly still shaken up, but feeling a little better after seeing a huntsman and huntress, "well, I was watching the tournament with my co-workers, and when the first round finished I headed home, though I was getting the feeling like someone was following me, but I stopped by here to get some food when that guy jumped me and dragged me into this empty tent. Then you guys showed up."

John simply nodded, before turning back to Linda, "Linda, report."

She had a sidearm pointing at the man's head, and her scroll, which had been partially converted to a tacpad on her wrist, up and running.

Linda replied in a cold voice that John knew she always used on missions, "nothing on him, no ID or scroll that is, but some sort of strange dust gun and a tattoo I feel like I've seen before, cross referencing it with cct tower files now…"

A few seconds later John heard a sharp intake of breath over TEAMCOM, "I've got something," Linda said, "it's some sort of initiative tattoo for the new chosen, those tech fanatics that had our armor,"

Linda's mind snapped back to the warehouse and Roman as she started to interrogate the man, her voice cold enough to freeze hydrogen and enough malice to feed a Grimm for a week, "did you do this on your own, or were you ordered to?"

He flinched away from her but stayed silent, "Now," she said pushing her boot into his back harder.

She heard a crack and a pop, then a soft cry escaped his lips, "ok, ok, just don't hurt me any more, I'll tell you, I'll tell you."

John found out from the woman that she works as a programmer at the cct tower before sending her home, though he gave her the dust gun from the tech fanatic if something like this ever happened again.

Linda had propped the prisoner up against the wall and tied both his hands and arms before initiating the interrogation, "spill" she said, holding one of her axes up to his neck.

The man flinched away, he mumbled, "the LT is gonna kill me," he began, "it all started when some guy with a bowler hat talked to us to try to recruit our group, then some huntsman showed up. They just disappeared into thin air with some of our stuff, I don't know a ton, I'm just an initiate and they don't tell me anything. Later the same guy with a bowler hat showed up with a friend and started handing out tasks, and my squad and a few others were supposed to kill all the cct tower workers, that was why I was following her, but I couldn't quite bring myself to kill her, all she did was be at the wrong place at the wrong time, so I just wanted to knock her out, then she couldn't cause trouble and I wouldn't get disciplined. Please don't hurt me." He finished.

Linda clipped her axe to her thigh and shrugged at John.

John looked at their prisoner, "thank you, that was very helpful," he led Linda out and went to go call Ozpin.

The man started to panic, "what's going to happen to me!?"

Linda's head poked back into the tent, "depends if huntsmen, Ozpin, or Atlas finds you first." He shivered as Linda turned around and walked out.

When Linda re-joined John, he was already on the comm with Ozpin, "yes professor, something is going on at the CCT tower, and the people who work there are being targeted, we just saved one from a beating, if you could send someone to come get her and bring her to you Linda and I are going to go investigate the tower," John listened for another minute, then shut off the comm.

They waited for another five minutes, John keeping a sharp eye out while Linda was familiarizing herself with the tech in case she needed to hack or fix something.

Three minutes later an explosion of rose petals landed next to Linda and materialized into Ruby.

She was out of breath, and leaned on Linda's armored arm, "Hey guys, how's it goin?" Linda almost jumped away when Ruby leaned on her, she still wasn't used to people besides her spartan sibs being friendly and laid back around them.

Ruby continued, not noticing Linda's discomfort, "I'm to escort somebody to Ozpin right?"

John nodded and gestured to the woman sanding nervously at his elbow, "Ruby, this is Mrs. Arinda Price, you will be escorting her to Ozpin's office, staying there until he is done talking to her, then helping her to her home near the docks."

Ruby summoned a serious look to her face and saluted, though John thought it looked a little ridiculous on the girl, he saluted back and walked away with Linda, and as he turned, he saw that Ruby's friendly smile had already made Mrs. Price exponentially more comfortable than the Spartans' impassive faceplates.

The Spartan pair arrived at the CCT tower, and it was surprisingly empty, even with the festival.

John stepped into the stairwell as Linda readied her axes to scale the building and provide overwatch.

John moved quickly through the first five floors, as they were all filled with servers that seemed incredibly primitive to John, as it didn't even come close to the memory crystal housing of even a dumb AI.

The tense silence seemed to shatter each time John had to open the distressingly loud door that led to the stairwell.

Finally, John arrived at the top floor, he inched the door open and peered in. The computer screens across the room laid dormant. John moved in, after getting the signal from Linda that she was hanging by one of the windows and ready to breach.

The desk at the front of the room had sensors attached, and John quietly avoided those, moving behind it and inspecting it. _Holotank_ he thought, probably some sort of projection of a remote assistant or automated, he looked closer and saw a large knife made of glass embedded in the ground behind it.

After a second of mental calculations of flight path and various assumptions, he concluded that someone came through the elevator doors, knowing they weren't supposed to be there, then when the attendant suddenly popped out of nowhere, the knife was thrown out of instinct, and went through the holo.

John conned Linda, "Some sort of intruder was here, entered by the elevator, or shaft. No conclusion on time though, could still be here."

An acknowledgment light winked.

John stuck to the abundant shadows, ghosting among the terminals and clearing the room, John rounded a corner and almost ran into a dark figure.

Time seemed to slow for John, and he took in the situation, the figure looked shocked, and she had stopped working on the bomb she was planting and appeared to be starting to leave. Now she was drawing a pair of curved blades from her back.

John acted on instinct, using his towering height to his advantage and brought a crushing blow upon the woman's head, but she was fast and managed to move just enough to have it glance off her shoulder.

She attempted to slash his guts open with a cross slash across his stomach, but it did little more than scar the paint of his armored carapace. John's other hand had moved to draw his sword, and he brought it to bear, launching a savage uppercut that the woman easily blocked, and John smiled behind his helmet.

He twisted his sword, and caught both of her blades between his own, then kneeing her in the stomach and pulling her swords in the opposite direction, they snapped with a loud crack and the shards exploded outwards.

John felt some shards embed in his armor, and the rest find their way into the walls of the room.

A loud crack appeared from nowhere, and the woman's aura flared, seeming shaky, her eyes went from annoyed to terrified in less than a second, and she turned tail and jumped out a window, disappearing into the city faster than even a spartan could follow.

Linda rushed over to the bomb on the floor, and took one glance at it before running over to John, "Grab on," she said to him, "we don't have time to defuse it with our limited knowledge of dust science,"

John threw an arm around her waist and they jumped out the window, Linda's axe, swinging them into an alley for a rough landing just as the night lit up with fire behind them.

John tried calling Ozpin, but only TEAMCOM and other private channels between the Spartans seemed to be functioning, he cursed, getting a connection to Fred, "I need you to get this message to Ozpin, you're closer," he quickly explained the events of the CCT adventure, "Get there now, we appear to have some sort of large plot or heist coming together under our noses right now, and he seems to be the best prepared to coordinate a counterattack or at least minimize damage, also stay with him, we have no other means of communication besides our coms, you are our relay."

"Affirmative sir," Fred replied,

John continued, "Kelly, do whatever you have to do to get the stadium evacuated, it seems vulnerable, and there would be high casualties if it were taken down,"

Another affirmative.

"Linda, you're with me, we are going to figure out what's going on."

Linda nodded, then leaned over to him, pulling a shard of glass embedded in the chin of his helmet, "Be more careful, you're lucky that didn't hit your neck,"

She added in her head, _I can't lose you, not with most of us already gone._ Her mind started to drift back to green team, and the aftermath of augmentation.

She had been the only surviving member, but John and Blue team had welcomed her, though she still felt a little left out, and that had brought her back to being a lone wolf, but maybe things were different.

She tried to stifle her roving mind, and finally managed to calm and focus on the mission with one of her Zen exercises she usually used for sniping, and followed John into the darkened streets.

 _ **Earlier**_

"What a matchup!" Port yelled, "we've seen amazing displays of skill by each side, but neither has gained any ground!"

Oobleck cut in, "for those of you just joining us, Pyrrha Nikos and Nora Valkyrie of Team JNPR, are facing off against Kurt and Adriana of team SNAK,"

"Kurt and Adriana have been putting out almost constant damage, but Pyrrha and Nora have been able to tank or deflect most of the damage, while most hits landed by JNPR have been dodged, the few that have landed have been devastating."

Fred stepped back from his opponent Nora, he **did not** , want to take another blow from her explosion hammer, so he decided to switch things up, he tucked his hands behind his back and switched is large combat knife from his right hand to his left, and drew a pair of throwing knives with his right from a leg holster.

Nora ran at him, oblivious to Fred's plotting. Fred threw his knives, impacting her aura and dropping it accordingly, but Nora kept running at him, throwing a heavy overhand swing at his head.

Fred planted his foot, changed his stance, and reached up and grabbed the handle of the hammer.

Nora looked a little shook at first, but her expression quickly deepened into a scowl of frustration as she pushed downwards with more effort, then reached for the grenade launcher trigger, only to see a blade digging deeper and deeper into her aura, getting alarmingly close to her chest.

Nora quickly shoved backwards and kicked off Fred, with over half her aura gone, she seemed content to play defensively.

Fred looked to his left, towards a heavily damaged field of wheat, courtesy of his partner and Pyrrha, another glance at the scoreboard put His and Kelly's fake "auras" at about half, with Pyrrha's at ¾ and Nora's hanging just an inch over the defeat line.

Kelly and Pyrrha were engaged in a deadly dance of metallic clangs and gunshots as the only music accompanying the duel. Kelly landed a slash from her spear, then followed it up with a blast of buckshot to the gut.

One second, Pyrrha was doubling over, the next she had slashed across Kelly's chest plate and swept the Spartan's legs from underneath her, all in the same motion. Fred thought, _that. should not. Have worked. Maybe some sort of semblance? I honestly don't know Pyrrha's_

Now the redhead was standing over Kelly and about to bring her sword down, when she was bowled over by Fred tackling her.

Kelly sprung to her feet determined to take the opportunity that Fred had given her, when she too was thrown unexpectedly, Nora had bull rushed her and knocked her shotgun out of her hands, sending it flying into the wheat.

Kelly realized she was still moving, _that hit must have jarred me more than I thought_ as Nora had Kelly pinned to her shoulder and running maniacally towards the edge of the arena.

Kelly acted fast, maybe she would be taken down, but her team would win,.

She took a shard of dust from a homemade grenade and shoved it down the barrel of the grenade launcher.

Nora took no notice and shoved Kelly out of the arena.

Fred barely heard Port announce that Kelly was out, so engaged he was in the duel with Pyrrha,

 _Parry. Parry. Lunge. Deflect. Take the hit. Slash_

Thoughts flew through his head faster than Kelly after 5 cups of coffee.

Fred saw Pyrrha start a move similar to the one she used against Kelly, he stepped back to dodge the sweep of his legs, then jumped forward and head butted Pyrrha in the chest, but he still felt his legs get swung out from underneath him.

 _Definitely semblance._ He thought, _but what? Magnetics? Telekinesis?_

Fred found himself staring at the sky, looking up at Pyrrha as she readied to finish him off. He tried to scramble backwards, but she had placed a boot on his chest and her semblance was holding him in place.

His hand flew wildly, when he felt something familiar.

His hand swung up with lightning speed, bringing Kelly's lost shotgun to bear on Pyrrha's chest.

He fired.

Every piece of buckshot embedded itself in Pyrrha's aura, then the dust shards detonated, sending her backwards into a rock on the other side of the arena and dropping her past the line of defeat.

The crowd gasped, then roared at the upset, and Oobleck took over, "it appears that both Pyrrha and Adriana are out! Nora and Kurt both have enough aura left that a single hit could send them to defeat,"

Fred struggled to his feet, seeing Nora on the other side of the arena.

She flashed a smile and struck a pose, pointing her grenade launcher at him.

Fred flicked a knife out of a sheath and sent it flying towards her, but just as it got there she pulled the trigger.

And promptly exploded in pink fire and smoke.

Fred raised his arms in victory as he heard a pop of an aura detonated and went to help Kelly clamber back up the side of the arena, before the two Spartans walked over to help their competitors.

 _ **Current time**_

"Affirmative sir" Fred said, and turned a corner, getting closer to the flight deck and the air shuttles down from the stadium. He was stopped as a very gray kid approached him, gray hair, all gray clothes, sounds cool, didn't really work on this kid.

"Hey, you!" He shouted, "big guy, I'm your new biggest fan,"

The boy kept walking closer, and Fred kept to his course, ignoring him.

"I thought your last fight was a real GUT BUSTER," the boy shouted as he jumped forward as if his legs were spring loaded, and kicked Fred with surprising force, Fred then felt a sharp pain where the kick had hit him, and saw a bloody hole through his armor, splattering the wall behind him with blood.

Fred sank to one knee and the boy kneeled in front of him, "what's the matter, aura still down after that fight? Don't worry, you aren't going anywhere, And I don't play fair."

Fred murmured, "I don't either." And just as the boy kicked his head back to laugh, Fred sprung into action, planting his shoulder in the boy's chest and pinning him to the wall. Fred took one of his knives, and stabbed towards the boy's bicep, digging through the aura with sheer force, and shoving the blade straight through.

The boy screamed and jumped backwards, terror on his face, staring unbelieving at the blade in his arm, when the hilt exploded and left nothing but a stump of an arm in the arm's place.

He ran away screaming, "I'll come back stronger, you will fear Mercury, you hear me!?" he backed out the door, eyes panicked.

Fred looked around the hallway, the few people still in it looked terrified.

Fred started using some of the biofoam they had recovered with the armor, and a few armor patches to seal himself, saying to the assembled people, "it's not safe here, get off the arena, and try to go home or even to another big city, something big is going on, and whoever that was is part of it."

There was a solemn nod from one concerned mother, hiding the eyes of her children, and she headed towards the shuttle pad, with others following close behind.

Kelly took a deep breath, readying herself for what she had to do, and vaulted over the edge of the stands and into the arena, then climbed up onto the center of the ring.

had just finished and Port started to say something, but Kelly put her external speakers on max volume, " **ATTENTION"** she said, getting anyone who wasn't already looking to stare at her, " **I'M SORRY, BUT YOU ARE ALL IN MORTAL DANGER"**

The crowd seemed apprehensive, but concerned, and Kelly pushed on, " **I'M GOING TO NEED YOU ALL TO EVACUATE THIS STADIUM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, SOME SORT OF PLOT OR PLAN IS OCCURRING RIGHT NOW, UNDER OUR VERY NOSES, AND IT COULD END IN THE DEATH OF MANY.**

 **A TERRORIST ATTACK ON THE CCT TOWER HAS CRIPPLED COMMUNICATION, AND THERE HAVE BEEN LEADS AND ASSOCIATES TURNING UP REGULARLY, I NEED YOU TO THINK OF YOUR SAFETY, AND TRUST ME."**

As if to accentuate her point a flock of giant nevermores suddenly landed on the glass roof of the stadium and started to try to get in, then everyone screamed and all hell broke loose.

 **AN: Thanks once again for reading, I have to apologize for the late update, various personal and mental issues happened, I just got a gaming PC, and school, with finals and everything, updates probably more consistent in the future.**

 **This is the part where stuff starts to take off and the plot gets a little more interesting, so yeah.**

 **Questions, comments, concerns? Leave a review, I will start directly responding after this chapter is published once I read it, as well as leave an answer in the AN of the next chapter.**

 **Review Responses:**

 **CT7567Rules: I tried to do a longer chapter this time, also its just how stuff works out I guess, also now that school is out, I'll have more time.**

 **Spartan-626: Glad you are enjoying them, sorry if there wasn't too much talk with RWBY, but there wasn't really a place to put it, especially with the timeframe**

 **Red October 700: I've got some ideas with what to do with the ship, but nothing major, it isn't the main part of the story.**

 **I get the pun, don't worry.**

 **Bumblebee, yep, I pretty much share your opinion, but maybe if RT actually builds something up and had set up reasons, then maybe, but now RT? Really?**

 **Halo ships, the others are there, and the Kelly ones can be pretty good, but I've always felt that Linda and John have been slightly more supported by canon (what little romance there is with halo) and I just like it better, but personal preference right?**

 **In my opinion, sibling like relationships don't show up often enough, because now everything has to be romantic and everything, oh well.**

 **I'm not going to lie, LuckyRose sounds both adorable and hilarious, but I just don't see it, (probably because I have a hard time shipping John with anyone other than Linda).**

 **Glad you liked the fight, good news, there is more.**

 **That idea for gun that's also a bigger gun sprung from me getting a friend to watch RWBY, in short, it worked, and he also now frequents r/fnki (that is a subreddit Of RWBY memes, I don't go there often, it is weird, but there is some good stuff, which is normal for reddit)**

 **Sounds like a cool weapon for an OC, my favorite RWBY OC is a crusader with an AR 15, (BURN IN HOLY BULLETS!) ((don't take me seriously I wrote this at 1 AM))**

 **Don't worry, you didn't bore me, I always enjoy reading reviews.**

 **Now that I have a nice PC, I'll have to check out ace combat.**


	16. Chapter 16

Fred

People started flooding out of the doors to the landing pad and tried to find an atlesian military transport, since they'd probably not be waiting for civilians to get on, while silently congratulating Kelly on whatever she did to get people moving.

Fred spotted exactly what he needed, a small transport with a pilot, and two crewmen in the back that had just dropped off their load of robotic soldiers.

Fred walked up to the transport and jumped in, showing the credentials Ozpin gave him to the pilot and said to him, "I need to get to Beacon, I'm acting as a message runner,"

The pilot looked back at him as the engines spun up, "we can get you close, but you'll have to jump, I can't take the time to get that low with this many Grimm running around,"

Fred looked out the cockpit, and sure enough the streets below were being swept over by a black tide, and there were winged Grimm swarming the skies. Fred commended John, he was right again, things were coming together, and not in a good way.

Fred squeezed back into the open air transport area just as it was taking off and the other two crew members were slamming shut massive doors meant to be Grimm proof.

One of the two crew turned and addressed Fred, "you've got approximately one minute to drop, Red will let you know when to go," the man pointed to the pilot's seat.

The other guy walked over to the back of the cabin and opened a hatch, pulling out a backpack and handing it to Fred, "Parachute. Which I don't think you should be getting, as we're technically not supposed to give away military property for free, but—"

He was cut short as the other guy interrupted him, "look at the guy, do you seriously think it's going to matter if you give it to him or he takes it, and he just beat last year's champs, then went on to beat one of the best individual fighters in the current tournament scene?"

The man sighed and handed the parachute to Fred who quickly loosened the harness and strapped it on.

The pilot suddenly shouted back into the cabin, "Brace yourselves, evasive maneuvers and a few angry bastards of nevermores."

The other two crew members ran over to seats and strapped themselves in as Fred reached up to the ceiling and grabbed a bar with both hands, anchoring himself in place.

The transport tucked into a roll, then a fast curve flowing into a dive, the Gs started to rise as the pilot maneuvered the clunky transport, and Fred looked over to see one of the crew members had already passed out with the other looking woozy.

Fred heard the cannons attached to the front of the bird spit their flaming dust of death at the Nevermores flocking around outside.

The Transport shook and Fred heard shattering glsss as he saw a nevermore's feather flick through the cockpit. He ran up to the door and peered inside.

The pilot was still alive, but had a large gash cut across the top of his chest and shouting obseneties at the nevermores that had dared touch his precious bird.

The cannons fired again, and another nevermore turned to cracked bone and torn flesh,

Fred peered out the cockpit, and was shocked at the pure amount of tangoes outside the cracked viewport. This pilot was good.

Red must have noticed Fred standing just behind him and said, "As much as I hate to admit it, we don't have much time left in the air, I advise you get going.

I'm going down fighting if I'm going down though, grab the other two and jump."

Fred nodded, "Affirmative,"

Red added his condolences, "Fly fast and check six."

The cannons lit up another Grimm as Fred turned and ran to grab the crew. At first the harnesses weren't coming off, but Fred ripped them from the wall and put each man under an arm, took a deep breath and jumped out the back hatch.

Fred tracked Red and his bird through the packed sky, watching as he burned a fiery trail through the air and slammed into a massive dragon, knocking it out of the sky in an explosion of dust, metal, and flesh.

Fred silently commended the man, then turned and watched as the ground approached, pulling his parachute at the last moment to minimize his air time.

He landed in an alleyway not far from beacon, waking both men up with a quick shake, then directing them to find an atlesian unit, as they were scattered across the city, before moving towards the school and Ozpin.

Kelly

Kelly rode down from the stadium towards the harbor on the skid of an overpacked shuttle transport, occasionally taking shots at Grimm that slipped past the atlesian escorts as they took dives at the transports full of panicked civilians.

Streaks of fire and darkness lanced across the sky, burning into each other with machine guns and talons.

The fleet managed to land at the port, and the cargo spewed forth, soldiers rushing to clear the area of Grimm ran from choppers side by side with the robotic knights. A few other huntsman had managed to snag a ride and were now directing people to various ships loading people to be ferried away.

Kelly pulled the door of her transport open and yelled for people to run for the boats, She then turned and readied her weapons, running to the approaching Grimm and blazing past the soldiers already on their way.

Kelly took cover behind a shipping crate that had been pushed in place to create a long corridor to force the Grimm into a choke point, she waited for the small charging Grimm to pass her hiding place, waiting for something bigger.

She sprung as an Ursa Major ran past, tackling it and bringing it crashing to the ground on one of its smaller comrades. She shoved her spear to its throat and blasted the head off the beast's shoulders, she looked up past the approaching horde and saw what she was looking for, a pair of alpha ursa moving towards the dock, wading through the smaller Grimm as if they were nothing but waist high grass.

Kelly smiled, pulling out a pair of twin SMGs, dropping the slides and jumping toward the approaching horde.

The first Grimm who encountered the flying Spartan felt surprise flow through its thick head as a boot descended from the sky, was firmly planted in its face, and crushed its already ugly face even more than its years of hunting things in the emerald forest and an unpleasant avalanche that had crushed its home and previous alpha.

Kelly ran across the horde of Grimm, carefully placing each armored sole while simultaneously unloading her SMGs into the onrushing tide, skipping across the sea of black.

Her guns clicked empty and she holstered them, pulling her spear and a grenade out, then pulling the pin on the grenade and silently counting, waiting till the last second and dropping it behind her, while also pushing off the back of a large Beowulf. Her back lit up with heat as the grenade went off, blowing her forward as she braced her spear and turned herself into a missile and pressurizing the gel in her suit.

The first alpha went to the grave of black dust having no idea it was even hit, and even less of what happened as 750 pounds blew through its chest cavity at almost 50 miles per hour.

Kelly twisted in the air, shaking the gore off her suit and landing spread out, sliding a few meters on the ground, bleeding off what little speed hadn't been transferred to the alpha.

She coughed and sputtered as the gel pressure returned to normal, pain flaring in a multitude of places across her body as she turned to face the second alpha only to hear a familiar sound.

Air support, it was different from a pelican or long sword, but the roar of a gunship's engines and the whistle of an incoming carpet bomb were ones she knew all to well from watching training tapes of war against the insurrection with her sibs and Deja.

She ran for the cover of a concrete wall and a pile of shipping crates, diving behind them as the corridor of Grimm lit up in a brilliant flame, she poked her head out and watched as more Grimm filled the place of their fallen brethren and the second alpha stood up looking more angry than ever. Kelly sighed, running back towards it silently, jumping and using remnant's reduced gravity to land on the back of its neck, quickly pulling two knives out from behind her back and driving them into the eye sockets of the enraged Grimm. Driving them as deep as possible before pulling them out and jumping away onto the nearest shipping container as the alpha roared and fell to the ground, finally giving into its injuries.

Kelly ran back to the emplacement of the atlesian soldiers, drawing looks of both admiration and adoration as she landed and continued to unload into the oncoming hoard.

 **John**

John and Linda moved quickly across rooftops toward beacon. John signaled for Linda to take cover and ducked down between a rooftop access hatch and an air duct as he activated TEAMCOM, "Blue team report,"

Kelly spoke up first, "Blue two reporting in, I'm at the docks and holding back the Grimm with atlesian soldiers and some huntsmen in training. Get back here quick, there are a lot of Grimm and not a lot of us."

John responded, "you heard the lady, Blue team double time. Kelly set a mission timer for fifteen minutes, or wait for the last ferry, if we're not back, just go. We might need someone on the outside to organize an extraction if we get stuck."

Kelly almost voiced her disagreement with the plan, then just sighed, "Affirmative." She said.

"Fred, meet Linda and I at rally point alpha once you update Ozpin, we're extracting,"

 **Fred**

"Affirmative sir," Fred said as he ran up to the elevator to Ozpin's office, and was surprised when it opened on its own, divulging Pyrrha and Ozpin.

"Hello Frederick," Ozpin said, unfazed by the 7'2" figure directly in front of him. Pyrrha seemed slightly more taken aback, but remained fairly calm, at least as much as one could when the city you are in is under assault by both gangs and monsters.

"Professor, scrolls are down because of a hit on the CCT tower, it was destroyed by a female saboteur using exclusively glass weapons, other than that Grimm populations have exploded out of nowhere all over the city, seeming to congregate around the ports because of current evacuation efforts."

"It's worse than I honestly expected," voiced Ozpin, "Miss Nikos, Fred, come with me." Ozpin motioned Fred into the elevator, popped a panel out and typed a furiously long passcode into a number pad which Fred memorized as well as recorded with his helmet cam.

The elevator felt like it lost power as it plummeted into the depths of beacon.

Thirty two seconds later, the door slid open into a giant hallway, and the group ran down the hall, Fred popping a small camera on the wall to cover the elevator and linking it to his helmet.

The group reached the end of the hall and Ozpin spoke, "Miss Nikos, we've already gone over this, so if you could please step into the tube,"

A tube looking like a cryopod opened and Pyrrha took a deep breath before stepping in and the hatch closed behind her.

Ozpin looked to Fred, "we are attempting a power transfer of sorts," he then quickly explained the story of the maidens and their powers.

Fred raised an eyebrow behind his helmet, and was about to say something when the camera by the elevator picked up motion.

Fred spun, bringing his rifle to bear on the end of the hall, saying to Ozpin, "something just cut through the door of the elevator and came down the shaft, tango is in a red dress, not carrying weapons and floating.

Ozpin's face darkened, "She's here, Cinder."

The figure moved off the camera, and a few seconds later into Fred's field of view.

He fired a quick burst at the approaching figure who was now running, and simply let it hit her aura.

Ozpin shifted, pulling his cane out and readying for combat.

The woman stopped, making a shield of glass out of thin air to block another burst from Fred, then her arm appeared to reach out flying towards Fred with the speed of a viper.

Fred's arm whipped up and deflected it, sending it slightly to the left of the intended target, when Fred realized it wasn't heading for him, but the fall maiden still in the tube, instead of hitting the unconscious maiden, it impacted the machine connecting the two tubes.

Four things happened all at once, the machine started to spark and fiz, Ozpin lunged forward yelling at Cinder, Pyrrha screamed in the tube, and Cinder's eyes lit with an orange fire as a cruel smile spread across her lips.

Ozpin was stopped mid lunge by a blast of fire, but he quickly turned himself in the air and hovered there, floating with a green shield surrounding him.

The chamber Pyrrha was in was sealed shut, and when he broke the glass, he couldn't feel a pulse.

He decided to just get out of there, as he saw Cinder and Ozpin floating a few feet off the ground blowing fireballs and magic at each other.

Fred sprinted forward and jumped with knife outstretched making a large slash at Cinder's aura across her back.

Cinder whipped around and looked at Fred, she nonchalantly flicked a sword towards Fred, and it flew towards him on a wave of fire, and slammed into his gut and sending him flying back.

Fred barely registered as Cinder turned back to Ozpin through the various warnings blaring through his helmet

 _Internal temperature at dangerous levels_

 _Suit punctured_

 _Gel pressure exceeding recommended levels_

Fred felt everything start to stabilize as he tried to look around. He was stuck to the elevator wall by the sword that had pierced his gut near where Mercury had shot him. He snorted, "right where I need to go," as he reached one of the elevator buttons and sent himself to the ground floor as he tried to pull the blade from the wall.

The elevator dinged and it opened to reveal a squad of atlesian soldiers, all with guns pointing at him.

He yanked the sword out of his chest with one last heave, dropped it on the ground, and walked past the soldiers.

Fred almost ran into general Ironwood on the way out the door, and the general took a look at the bloodied wound saying, "get this man on a medical transport, he can evac with us."

One of the soldiers saluted, but Fred started to protest, before he simply slumped over on the floor and passed out.

 **John**

It had been ten minutes and Fred still wasn't back, he was reluctant to leave his teammate, but Fred's FOF tag had moved beneath beacon, then back up, saying he was injured, but then it continued moving, and eventually took off with some Atlesian transports, so Linda was finally able to convince him to leave.

Even with the transport they had acquired, Linda and John weren't going to be able to get to the harbor in under a minute, at which Kelly had been ordered to leave, so he gave her the order to get going, and Kelly reported the last ferry as away.

The two Spartans had grabbed as many weapons ammo and supplies as they could fit into the atlesian combat truck they had stolen and modified and without doors and with the gun they had mounted on top, it looked remarkably like a warthog.

Instead of trying to find a ship, the Spartans opted to follow the remnants of teams RWBY and JNPR, which had boiled down to Ruby, Yang, who had lost an arm, and was passed out, Jaune, Nora, and Ren, but they weren't sure how to approach the grieving huntsmen and huntresses, so they simply followed behind out of sight,

The two Spartans camped half a mile from the Xio Long residence, and before Linda nodded off, John said to her, "Sam would've gone after Fred, and made it back to Kelly in time."

Linda sighed, and leaned her helmet on his armored shoulder, "We'll get them back, and get back to reach. We won't leave anyone behind."

"I hope so, I hope so." He said, shaking his head, but she was already out.

Meanwhile, somewhere deep below beacon something stirred.

 **AN: Sorry for the long wait again, I'll do my best to keep a more consistent schedule.**

 **Either way, I hope you enjoyed.**

 **Also the next three chapters I have planned each follow a member of Blue team (or two in the case of John and Linda)**

 **Leave a review or comment if you want a specific one first, as I don't have a specific order planned.**

 **Review Responses:**

 **CT7576rules: Sounds cool, I will keep that in mind, but honestly that was a joke, what I think would be cool though, would be a CQC specialist with a SPAS 12 and a Vector, though if I were to pick an assault rifle, maybe a SIGM400 TREAD, which is a 5.56, modified for full auto and a larger mag of course, with anything else you want to slap on it.**

 **RedOctober700:**

 **Glad you enjoyed, I tried to make Ruby as Ruby as possible.**

And am glad you appreciate those little interactions that are in there, ie the chair, they are very fun to write  
Fred's quest for a corn dog will continue, he will not give up, he is a Spartan after all.  
I don't know what others think, but mercury never seemed to be an amazing direct fighter, he seemed to rely on dirty tricks and gimmicks, not that he is a bad fighter, he just fights like a rouge, that's his character.  
I don't know if you can tell, but Linda is my favorite, though Fred is awesome too, (they are all really cool, they're Spartans)  
You can't just demonize everyone who isn't super friendly to the main characters, it's a gray scale.  
The tech cult, I don't know exactly what I'm going to do with them, but I have ideas, they will come up later.  
Fred and Kelly vs Pyrrha and Nora, I tried to make it both true to RWBY and Halo, while also making it interesting.  
The ship will continue, and I am interested to see where it goes as well, (I have a general idea, but not totally sure)  
I agree with you on RT and v6 and ships, there was so much potential for stuff, then they just dropped it, but oh well, that isn't what I watch RWBY for, (I used to watch for Pyrrha among other things, but that ended badly)  
I'm terrible at names, at least for people, so I usually just copy from somewhere (arinda price comes from a SW book)((she's the lady they rescued))  
Idk about Lucky Rose, but maybe when I finish this I'll do some one shots and I can fit that in somewhere, no promises.  
The weapon would be cool, I just hope in halo infinite they keep up the great weapon design from the other games, and maybe even add more.  
Flying is always cool, and Ace looks awesome, I might have to try it.  
Once again, glad you enjoyed and thanks for the review


	17. Chapter 17

Kelly was sitting against the wall in the boat's engine room, watching the tape her helmet cam had recorded for the past few weeks, figuring out what she could do better while fighting Grimm, taking down auras, or making dust tech.

Out of curiosity for what happened, she scrolled back to her arrival in remnant. The recording started abruptly, about 100 feet in the air, and Kelly paused it, taking a look at the frozen pixels.

Her armor was standing just behind and left of John's, but it was simply the shell, he and the techsuit weren't in it, but it was still positioned as if he was, she then squinted, looking towards the upper left side of the photo,

There she and the rest of the team hung in the air, in the same positions as their armor, then when she hit play and watched as her body went limp and fell towards the ground. She watched as nevermores swooped overhead, grabbing pieces of armor and flying in various directions.

She sighed, _nothing new,_ she thought, and tried to access the recording from Reach, and get some hint as to what that alien monument was, but was disappointed when she found that there was simply no recording from before.

She double checked the computer systems in her helmet. Everything was functioning perfectly, however according to the computer, her armor simply didn't exist before remnant.

She was interrupted as the boat shook from some impact.

 _What now?_ She thought

She had already fended off two sea Grimm with the help of Blake and the Faunus boy that she had hit in the head with her spear at the harbor, and it looked like the number was going to get up to three.

She opened the door and pushed into a crowded hallway of people that had evacuated from the upper deck.

A path was quickly cleared for what the passengers were calling the mysterious armored huntress, which had for some reason been shortened to "Ma." Kelly speculated it was a combination of an acronym, and the fact that she had fixed technical problems, fought Grimm, and after an incident with the first Grimm, the children on the boat seemed to consider her a ride service, and she was too shy to tell them no.

That had eventually ended with her being subject to mobs of excited children surrounding her anytime she was above decks, which in turn had brought her to the secluded corner of the engine room.

She finally reached the hatch to the top deck, and pushed it open.

Kelly stepped out and was about to evaluate the situation when her vision was filled with a blonde boy.

Kelly caught Sun with a quick motion, then he reclined in her arms, "Hey Adriana," and smiled, and she quickly dropped him on the deck, "— oof, alright I deserved that."

They each looked up to see Blake dumping rounds from her pistol into some sort of large serpent, and Sun hopped up and quickly joined her with his own pistols.

Kelly's mind flew back to her time at beacon, and what she had heard from Port's class, a story about serpents and their susceptibilities, then smiled to herself at the simplicity of the situation as she pulled a shard of dust from her store in a small tactical hard case on her thigh, then attached a simple detonation mechanism as she walked over to the side of the boat.

Kelly looked over to see if Blake and Sun were still on the boat, and seeing that they were, dropped the small yellow dust grenade into the water.

The sea around the boat started to boil, and the serpent started to spasm, thrashing around in agony for at least ten seconds before falling into the sea dead.

Sun and Blake looked over at her in amazement, with Blake saying, "You should have done that on the other two."

Kelly just shrugged as the expressions on the two turned to ones of disgust as dead fish started to rise to the surface and the smell started to become apparent.

The spartan let out a small laugh as the two Faunus plugged their noses, grimacing, while she breathed clean filtered air from her airtight helmet.

The harbor was easy to spot, as the lights of menagerie reflected off the calm waters of the southern sea and made the port into a beacon in the night.

The boat signaled for a berth, and a small tug quickly came from the harbor to speak with the captain. Blake realized what was going on and quickly tugged Sun down to watch the proceedings, while Kelly stayed in the shadows of the upper deck, unsure if her presence would disturb anything, so she just sat, unseen and listening.

The procedures were quickly taken care of by the captain, who was quite experienced in these matters, (and having a Belladonna on board didn't hurt).

As the boat was pulled into the harbor, Kelly's eyes widened in amazement, she had seen plenty of cities on her home world of Imber, not that she remembered much, just the routes she would run races with her friends, and Vale, but Menagerie was just different.

She immediately saw the vibrancy and life emanating from the streets, from the vendors hawking their wares despite the late hour, to the people calmly walking the beach and enjoying the last few bits of twilight. The town just felt different than any other thing she had seen, maybe people were less worried, maybe the culture was just fundamentally different.

Kelly jumped down and landed next to Blake and Sun with a surprisingly quiet thump for 750 pounds of war machine, and Blake motioned for the two to follow her down the gangplank and into the city

The group walked through the bustling port, heading towards the edge of the city where the Belladonna house was.

Kelly said to her companions, "I've got some stuff to take care of, especially food, but if you give me directions I'll catch up quickly ," Blake raised an eyebrow, but gave Kelly a few simple directions and an address, then watched as the Spartan disappeared into a restaurant still relatively full of patrons. Kelly snorted as she looked at the menu, seeing a corndog and thinking of Fred once again. As much as she hated to admit she wasn't entirely focused on her own part of the mission, she was worried about him.

The last she had heard over comms Fred was still in the school when it went down and Atlas pulled out. She shook her head, _Fred can handle himself, he doesn't need me worrying about him._

Kelly heard heavy footsteps coming up behind her and was tempted to turn around, but remembered she should be focusing on the beer she had ordered for appearances. The footsteps kept getting closer and Kelly was about to turn around when she heard a voice pop up behind her, "Hey! You!" Kelly turned around slowly, careful not to cause any agitation she scanned the man who had approached her.

He was tall by Remnant standards, about six feet, had stringy blonde hair, and looked as if he had a few drinks already to work up the courage to confront her.

He clumsily pointed a finger at her chest and angrily stated, "We don't take kindly to you Atlesian types round here," Kelly slowly stood up, towering a full foot over him, he continued as his face changed to one of fear, "We fought to get our… own… country-"

Kelly put her payment down on the bar and the man basically jumped out of his skin, Kelly simply walked around him and out of the bar.

Kelly drew looks of concern and fear all the way down the street, with a few showing rage barely kept in check, clearly she wasn't wanted here. She quickly turned down the first alleyway she could find, and upon seeing it was empty, looked up to judge what jumps would need to be made.

She crouched, then launched herself upwards, grabbing a windowsill and wincing as the weak wood sill loudly crunched under her weight. Just as she was about to leap the rest of the way to the roof a child poked his head out, looking more surprised than anything when he saw what was hanging off his window.

The kid tentatively raised his hand in a wave, and Kelly held a finger up to her lips, or where they would be if not for the helmet, then silently launched herself to the roof.

Kelly arrived at the Belladonna's from the opposite side of the front door, and something just didn't feel right, so she had hid in the fronds of a particularly sturdy palm and waited. She had looked around, wishing she had Linda's helmet mods that let her swap between almost every visual filter.

A flick of movement caught Kelly's attention, and she focused on it, she looked closely, and seeing it was a bird ruffling feathers, she almost relaxed, then whipped around when she heard a small crunch as a twig was stepped on. Her eyes searched wildly and she caught the last glimpse of someone or something disappearing behind a large boulder.

Kelly wanted to alert the Belladonnas to the spy outside their home, before realizing she was basically doing the same thing, but that was overridden by the fact that they were in danger, and from what she had heard, the Belladonna's were at the forefront of the peace efforts.

Kelly quickly jumped off the palm towards the house, extending one arm and grabbing the edge of the roof. She pulled herself up and hoped no one saw her dangle from the roof, before moving to one of the skylights. She opened it up and dropped into the room below, closing it behind her.

The Belladonna's and Sun were sitting in the living room discussing something, where they had a clear view of Kelly's landing. Kelly was able to catch the tail end of a conversation as Blake noticed her approach,

"So why would you just leave someone who has never been to Menagerie to just wander around the port?" said someone who Kelly assumed was Blake's father.

Blake responded while rolling her eyes and waving Kelly over, "Don't worry Dad, she's here now. Adriana, next time just use the door."

Blake's parents rose to greet the newcomer, Mr. Belladonna stopped short, but Mrs. Belladonna walked right up and shook Kelly's hand, "Adriana was it? You'll have to excuse my husband, he was expecting someone… shorter."

Kelly nodded, "I hate to spoil the mood of the evening, but I saw something outside you should know about."

Mrs. Belladonna looked concerned and motioned for Kelly to sit down.

Mr. Belladonna stopped her by holding a hand out, "Why should we trust you? If you excuse me, but you almost literally fell from the ceiling unannounced."

Kelly sighed, "alright I'll sit down and explain—"

Mrs. Belladonna interrupted her, "and you're safe here honey, you can take off the helmet."

Kelly hesitated, then thought that they would find out eventually, better to have it happen in a controlled environment. She started to remove the helmet and responded in her unmodulated accent, "Blake you may know me better as Kelly, and I'm sorry I had to go undercover, Ozpin's orders."

Blake looked intrigued, but not very surprised, "you fight the same in and out of the armor, so I had my suspicions, plus you and your team are the only ones I've met who fight the way you do."

Sun looked a bit confused, whispering to Blake, "Do I know her from somewhere? pre-Adriana that is."

Blake whispered back, "yeah, she hit you in the head on the day we met." Sun turned and looked at Kelly quizzically, clearly trying to remember the event.

Mr. Belladonna looked concerned, "are you a spy or something of the sort?"

Kelly tested one of the sturdier looking chairs and carefully sat down, almost standing back up when it creaked, but held. Kelly sighed, "no, I am not a spy, just had orders from Ozpin to report to him anything strange I saw at the festival or tournament.

Either way I was walking towards your house through the forest because people on the street were looking at me weird and I'm not a fan of crowds. When I saw a figure creeping through the forest away from your place, and it looked almost as if it wasn't there, except for a hint of a red mask. So, wanting to be careful I came in through the skylight."

Mrs. Belladonna brought her hands up to her mouth and let out a quiet gasp, "it could be an assassin, I'll up the guard count."

Blake spoke up, "we'll be fine, they were obviously scared off, and even if they do decide to come back we don't want to let them know that we know they are coming,"

Kelly nodded, "sounds good, let's just make sure we are all on high alert for a while."

Blake had gone outside on the balcony to clear her thoughts when her sensitive ears picked up a slight thump behind her, Blake started to turn, "Ilia, that better be you."

The chameleon girl sighed, "yeah, I was thinking to myself that you might have forgotten about me,"

Blake simply nodded in response, and Ilia moved on, "listen Blake, I know we weren't on the best terms last we met, but you need to know this. There was some sort of Atlesian assassin snooping around your house, in fact just in those woods over there,"

Blake's face made almost no change, "my family have dealt with plenty of assassins before,"

"Is it really worth the risk that this one gets through?"

"As opposed to what?"

"Just come back Blake, we'd welcome you, and your family would be safe again,"

"We both know that's not true"

"Look, all I'm asking is you think about it"

Blake heard the screen door start to open, and Ilia disappeared into the night. Sun's head popped out, "were you talking to someone?"

"No,"

Sun looked a little confused, "oooooookay, but your mom made cookies, and we want to make sure you get some before Kelly and I eat them all."

The three huntsmen stood outside on the balcony again an hour later, food settled and conversing. Kelly didn't have much to add, but she was honestly just happy to be involved, and eventually she asked, "what's the history of this place? Menagerie that is."

Blake thought for a minute, then responded, "Well, after The Great War the faunus were given Menagerie as a reward for participating, but most saw it as a slap in the face as most of it is uninhabitable desert and there are types of Grimm unique here that can be particularly dangerous."

Kelly saw a blip appear on her motion tracker, and instantly was alert. Blake and Sun saw Kelly's change in posture, "what's wrong?" Blake asked.

Kelly said quickly, "someone is here, behind you in the—" she was cut off as what looked like a tusk extended from behind Blake's shoulder and poked Kelly in the chest, she froze as lightning blew past her suit's usually protected and grounded systems and into her unprotected flesh.

Kelly almost screamed, but stopped herself, breathing deeply and focusing on who or what had attacked her. She stayed perfectly still, feigning that she was taken out of commission and saw the same phantom from before she went into the house step up on the railing as Blake and Sun quickly spun around to face the attacker.

Ilia glared at Blake from behind her mask, "So that's why you weren't surprised. You're colluding with them!"

Ilia jumped past Blake and Sun and landed in front of Kelly as Blake protested, "But—Kelly isn't with—"

Kelly saw an opportunity as Ilia advanced, and took it. Kelly's fist flew up, catching Ilia just under the rib cage and flinging her into the air. The blow had connected solidly so one could imagine Kelly's surprise when the girl spun in the air and the strange spear weapon extended and discharged another pulse, this one connecting with Kelly's collarbone.

The second shock was considerably stronger than the first one, and this time Kelly couldn't suppress a scream, but through the pain she saw that the canister containing dust on Ilia's weapon was ejected without the chameleon Faunus noticing.

Blake ran over to Kelly and asked if she was alright, and the Spartan took a deep breath before answering, "I'll be ok, just go on the offensive now if you are going to do it—" Kelly interrupted herself with a fit of coughing, then continued, "do it now, she's out of dust, that was the entire canister," pointing at the lifeless hunk of rock.

Blake looked conflicted, but went and jumped after Sun and Ilia onto a nearby rooftop to join the fray.

Once she was alone Kelly slumped to the ground, leaning against the railing and taking her helmet off. She knew it was probably unfounded, but she always felt like fresh air made her feel better, so she let the sea air fill her nostrils and closed her eyes.

A few minutes later the small alarm she had set on her scroll went off and she shot to attention. A burning pain shot up around her neck and upper chest and she winced, determined to move more carefully and find some burn cream.

Kelly had applied a bit of biofoam to the area with the worst injuries and was currently running across rooftops to where she saw the flashes of weapon discharge.

She arrived just as both Blake and Sun were thrown to the ground by a sweep of Ilia's weapon and she slid to a stop with two sidearms pointed directly at Ilia's masked face, while Ilia had her weapon poised for another strike.

Kelly knew she wouldn't be able to kill the girl before another stunning blow could be landed from the electric whip/spear.

The standoff lasted another two full seconds before Ilia broke it, this time with words instead of weapons. "You're nothing! Nothing but a testament to Atlas's inhumanity!"

Kelly responded by shooting the weapon out of Ilia's hand, but even when the girl started to flee, Kelly just let the guns fall to her sides and back into their holsters

She helped Blake and Sun up, but her mind was elsewhere. Was she really even human? She didn't question it back on Reach, but she had seen so much over the past few weeks, how much more were the Spartans missing?

 **AN: Once again, sorry for taking so long, this story is not abandoned, and I refuse to do so, but since school I've had less and less time to write, but it seems to be letting off a bit, idk.**

 **Either way I ran into some writer's block and I had to take a break, but I've gotten back into a bit of a rhythm, and I think I'm going to do Fred and Atlas next.**

 **It has come to my attention in a review by a guest, "You stole this from Wattpad. You disgust me. At least have the dignity to write your own story."**

 **PSA to anyone with similar thoughts and this guy:** **I am the same person**

 **The story was not stolen, I just posted it on both, If you need more convincing PM me or leave a review, I can set up something that shows I own both accounts.**

 **Also: IF this was copied (in theory, stick with me here) look at the upload dates, I consistently upload here first, so… yeah… if anything the Wattpad is the "copy"**

 **Not really I own both accounts, and will be posting something similar in the AN there.**

 **Responses to other reviews:**

 **Guest 1: The elites are cool characters and very fun to write, but I think I'm going to keep this story strictly Blue team for plot reasons, except the epilogue…**

 **But I might write something with Elites later, as I said, they are really cool**

 **PanzerJ: I'm with you, honestly I don't really see it either, but to each their own, and as I have said before I am not a ship writer, except maybe a bit here and there, but for reasons I have mentioned before I really only ship the Spartans with each other.**

 **Redoctober700: I know, we all hoped Cinder would fail deep down (most of us anyway) and yes, I left it open on purpose.**

 **Beacon is in fact gone, and the teams are scattered, you have here your answer with what has happened to Kelly, (her arc isn't done quite yet)**

 **I'm looking forward to writing Fred's chapter, but I've got a plan for how most of this will play out, including the armor situation and the thing that happened with the battle rifle Fred found in that shop…**

 **Idk with Fred and ships, I mean I might throw in some stuff between Kelly and him, but we'll see won't we. As for my thoughts on crossover ships, I don't really have much, but in my opinion it would end up with either Yang or Emerald, but that's me and has very little backing it up, as I have said many times before I am not a good romancer or matchmaker.**

 **Yes, you will have to wait, hopefully not too long, but I think it will be hard to separate the two Spartans, and I'm the writer.**

 **Well, if I want a flight sim, I know where to turn.**

 **Check your six as well, but I must leave you with one last piece of advice,**

 **Make your own luck. Until next time.**

 **Evinco: Wow, I cannot believe I missed something like that, I need to put that in somewhere in the next few chapters, thanks for that.**

 **CT7567Rules: lets just say that Smart AIs retain some of the personality of their parent...**


	18. Chapter 18

John woke up to the sun peeking over the trees of the forest, signaling the start of a new day. He looked around, and seeing that Linda had taken off her helmet, he did the same.

Suddenly a smell filled his nostrils, "Is that… Bacon?" He asked Linda.

She turned, saw that he was awake, and nodded, saying, "it is the only food we have that would go bad without refrigeration, so I figured we might as well treat ourselves."

She came over and sat down on the back of the truck, setting the pan between the two of them and taking a piece for herself. The bite was halfway to her mouth when one of the proximity alarms went off, and both Spartans jumped.

John pulled his rifle up and moved to a more mobile position, crouching instead of sitting, and Linda reached for her helmet, not even letting it seal before she was looking at the motion tracker and flipping through visual filters to see who or what was approaching.

She reported to John, not looking away from where the alert had come from, "one tango, moving slowly but headed directly for us, appears to be humanoid in size."

Suddenly the figure stepped out into the light, and when she saw who it was Linda was relieved, if a bit confused.

Nora sauntered across the small clearing, appearing to be in some sort of sleepwalking position, and when she reached the truck, (John had lowered his weapon) she picked up most of the bacon left in the pan and promptly shoved it down her throat in one or two bites. John grabbed the pan away before Nora could eat any more, and that seemed to break her daze, "oh hey John, what are you doing here?" Before he could answer she continued, "and why are you with that girl Naomi from the tournament?" John looked dumbfounded, wondering what in hell was going on when Ren popped, seemingly out of nowhere, and said, "just give her a minute,"

They all stood there for another few seconds, when Nora suddenly shouted, "AHA! You're the same people as those in the armor!" She pointed at John, "that makes you Sam but actually John," she turned and looked at Linda, clearly scrutinizing her stance and body shape under the bulky armor, "and you're Linda!"

"Cracked it!" The girl finally exclaimed.

John jumped down from the bed of the truck and set the pan that was now empty down, saying to Ren, "you owe us breakfast."

The two Spartans drove to the Xiao Long household with Nora and Ren riding in the bed of the back when Linda voiced her concerns to John, "How are we going to find Kelly and Fred? They could be on the other side of the planet from us, and TEAMCOM only has a range of about 5 miles, all we know is Kelly went southeast, and that Fred was taken by Atlas." She sighed, looking like she wanted to say more, but just let herself fall back on the seat, "I'm just worried about them."

John looked over at his red-haired comrade, "I am too, but let's try to focus on how to fix it, I don't want to lose any more Spartans." They pulled up to the house in a large clearing, and John said, "how about we ask Ruby's dad, he's a former huntsman, he'd know his way around the world."

Linda just nodded and slid out of the seat and followed Nora and Ren to the door.

The doorbell was rung as the Spartans removed their helmets, and a furious flurry of barks popped out of an excited Zwei on the other side of the door. Ruby appeared in pajamas and a flurry of rose petals to answer the door.

"Oh hey guys, one sec," Ruby turned around and called back into the house, "DAAAAAAD, my friends are here, can you make more pancakes?"

"Uh, how many?" A voice called back.

Ren slipped past Ruby into the house, "I'll help" he said, "also, keep an eye on Nora, she can and will eat them all,"

John nodded and placed a hand on Nora's shoulder, then asked Ruby, "so where is Yang?"

"She is up in her room brooding, and she hasn't really been down since she lost her arm, though maybe she'll come down for you. I'll see if I can get her."

The girl ran up the stairs and left the Spartans with nothing to do but walk into the kitchen.

The Spartans checked the living room and kitchen for chairs that would support their weight, and there was only one large chair that would, so the two Spartans awkwardly squeezed in beside each other during breakfast, and Ruby remarked on how they were, "so cute." Linda turned bright red and looked away, but John was too engaged in his pancakes to notice.

Ruby managed to bring Yang down part way through the meal, and the blonde's first words to the pair were addressed to Linda, "why were you fighting Uncle Crow?"

Linda answered quickly, as if she had rehearsed the situation, "A, I didn't know who he was. B, he tried to stab me first."

Yang looked like she wanted to be angry, but her face fell, simply mumbling, "I believe you," and going back to lethargically spooning food into her mouth, why she was eating pancakes with a spoon was beyond Linda, but she was glad that conversation was over.

John introduced himself and Linda to Taiyang, then explained the predicament of their team and asked if the man had any predictions on where to try to find them.

Taiyang took a second before answering, "your friend Kelly probably went to either Menagerie or one of Mistrel's south ports, but I'd bet menagerie if she is traveling with any Faunus, probably a safer journey too, less traffic to the south, both Grimm and human. As for Fred, that's his name right?" John nodded, and Taiyang continued, "if he was taken by Atlas and has armor similar to yours then he was either taken into military "medical care" as an excuse to study it, or just had it straight up confiscated, I'd look in the capital, though you'd have to search both upper and lower."

John nodded, then asked, "what would you do? That is, who would you try to find first?"

Ren answered this time, "Keep in mind that Menagerie's capital is significantly smaller than the Atlesian one."

Taiyang voiced his agreement, "that, and you don't have to deal with the nightmare that is Atlesian bureaucracy."

"Thank you for the information sir." John replied, "But, we'll be heading out after the meal, we need to find our team,"

Ruby piped up, "We, that is, Jaune, Ren, Nora, and I are headed to Mistrel, you can come with us, then split off once we reach the capital. After all, it's always better to have more trained hands on deck to fight Grimm right?"

John polished off his pancakes and said to the group, "Then I am ready when you are."

Linda was secretly relieved that Yang had declined to come, as the truck was crowded enough with team RNJR in the back, and they eventually had to fold down the gun into its storage compartment for regular travel because of the combination of people and bags in the back that did not fit in the storage lockers, that and of course the fact that Yang's depressed state would severely damage the team's effectiveness.

The group got through the forests of Vale fairly quickly, and when they got close to the port on the eastern coast they were allowed onto a ferry with little trouble even though their vehicle was larger than most.

The ferry itself was fairly empty, as most people who fled Vale were either already gone or settled in the countryside, so RNJR was able to rent a cabin to sleep in on the upper deck for a low price, while John and Linda opted to sleep in the truck, though they kept proximity alarms around their vehicle just to be safe.

John and Linda spent most of their time around the vehicle, and RNJR would occasionally come down to join them, that is, until the storm hit.

It wasn't major, just made it absolutely miserable to be outside of the sealed upper decks, but once it started, the rain and wind did not stop for days. The two Spartans were reluctant to abandon their equipment where it couldn't be monitored, but Ruby was eventually able to convince them to come up to the cabin after two straight days of rain, though the Spartans covered the truck with proximity alarms, cameras, and other security measures.

The door opened to the cabin which RNJR occupied, and Jaune, Nora, and Ren looked up from their board game as Ruby and the Spartans stood sopping wet in the hall. Ren stood up and offered them each a towel, which Ruby immediately wrapped herself in, but the Spartans just wiped their gauntlets and then helmets as they set them aside.

Ruby shivered, "you guys are lucky you have those suits, how do they even work?"

John winced, "that's classified, and honestly I don't really know the intricacies of it,"

Linda piped up, "But, if you allow us to interview you on how auras and semblances work we can give you a bit of info as long as you promise to keep it a secret."

Ren answered, "I'd be glad to do it, but to be fair none of us are particularly knowledgeable in the subject of Aura."

Linda waved it off, "we'll ask questions and you just answer to the best of your ability."

Nora chucked the board game across the room, "Alrighty, I'm ready, a girl can only play so much monopoly"

Ren voiced his agreement, but stated, "Nora, what have we talked about with throwing things unnecessarily?"

Nora ignored him and the Spartans and Ruby sat down on the floor next to the other three.

Linda started, "Does Aura protect against environmental effects like lightning, fire, or harmful chemicals?"

Ren answered almost immediately, "according to the books I've read and my personal experience, it protects a bit, but only if the person perceives the thing as a threat, and even then it does very little against natural dangers such as the ones you mentioned. That is, unless you have a semblance like Nora's,"

John spoke up, "what is your semblance Nora?"

She smiled, "I'll show ya!" Then grabbed a fork and ran to an outlet, there was a sharp **SNAP** as a shock was discharged, Nora dropped the fork as the Spartans started at her, her hair standing on end she then ran back over to the group and picked up Ruby with one hand and started lifting her up above her own head like a dumbbell.

Ruby looked unhappy with being raised in the air, but just frowned resignedly, and folded her arms.

"Your aura absorbs electrical charge and uses it to enhance your physical strength?" John theorized.

Three heads nodded and Linda moved to her next question, "what is the "Average" aura strength and how much does it vary and why?"

Once again Ren was the one to answer, "An everyday Joe could probably take a round from a 9mm, but they'd have to know its coming. The average for even a huntsman in training is considerably higher, and a full huntsman even higher. I could try to come up with ways to help you test it, but we'd need a test subject, something that can measure psi, and either machinery or someone very precise."

John seemed to think for a moment, "we can help provide on two of those accounts."

Linda interjected with one last question, "Are auras more susceptible to certain types of damage? For example, would stabbing someone take down the aura quicker than slashing them or hitting them with a blunt object?"

Ruby was the one to answer this time, "That actually varies from person to person, though the weapon the person wields tends to create a resistance for them, like Yang can take a lot more bludgeoning hits, but a sword or rapier takes her down much faster because she fights almost exclusively with fists and shotguns." John and Linda nodded simultaneously as they had each put on their helmets for the connection of the neural lace so they could measure the output of force from their gauntlets.

"We'll use Nora because her semblance allows her to recharge her aura quickly," Ren said.

Nora frowned, "Pyrrha said I shouldn't let people use me."

Ren sighed, "We're testing on you Nora, and that's not what Pyrrha meant,"

At the mention of the red-haired huntress Jaune darkened and looked even sulkier, which John hadn't previously thought possible.

With the neural lace contained in each of the MJOLNIR systems connected and displaying the psi output of Linda's grip, John gave Ren a thumbs up, and Ren held his scroll out with a display of Nora's aura strength, and Nora herself held her arm out, which Linda promptly clamped down on.

"Start with 100psi," John said.

Ren looked a little concerned, "are you sure you can output that?"

Linda smirked a bit behind her helmet, and just did it.

Nora's aura started dropping, though not as fast as the Spartans expected, Ren gave an explanation, "Aura science is notoriously finicky, and expected damage seems to always take down less of an aura, which is why unorthodox tactics like yours are especially effective."

Both the Spartans nodded, and looked back to their readouts, but were interrupted by a sudden shake of the boat.

Everyone was instantly alert, fearing Grimm, and Ruby ran over to the window and peered out, "Don't worry guys, we're just…" she paused, confused, "at the port? Maybe that storm must have blown us closer to Mistrel, we weren't projected to arrive for another day and a half," while the distraction pulled away everyone's attention the Spartans hadn't moved and noticed that Nora's aura had started dropping faster with her attention diverted, further confirming what Ren said.

The Spartans stood up, John saying, "we'll do more testing later, for now, I think we should get moving,"

Everyone voiced their agreement, though RNJR seemed less sure after realizing the storm was still dumping water outside.

Linda sighed, "we'll cover the back with a tarp and you four can ride back there with the bags, just come out in 5 minutes and we should have it set up,"

The group nodded, and the Spartans walked out into the rain.

The tarp helped, but it wasn't perfect and the Spartans could hear RNJR complain every time a particularly large splash hit them. The group had elected to stay the night at a hotel here in the port town, even though the Spartans wanted to push on, they realized their companions were only human and the truck needed a lot of fuel to make it all the way to the capital, so they filled up and got a hotel room, getting promises out of RNJR to leave first thing in the morning.

The next day Linda ascended the stairs to wake RNJR, and she knocked on their door. The door opened, but revealed only Ren, that is until Linda glanced behind him and saw the partially catatonic forms shambling towards the door.

Linda scooped as many bags as she could carry off the floor and Ren grabbed the few that remained and headed for the elevator, the others following, albeit slowly.

Ruby fell asleep on Linda's shoulder not once but twice on the three floor elevator ride to the ground floor, and almost fell over more times than that on the way to the truck.

A day and a half into the group's journey towards Mistral and Linda was wondering why there was such a low number of Grimm, or she was until about ten minutes ago when a flock of nevermores and a small pack of coyote like Grimm appeared out of the brush and started chasing the truck. Nora had taken a few of the dogs out of commission with her grenade launcher and Ruby had managed to take out a nevermore with Crescent Rose.

John, being the best driver of the group by far was completely focused on not hitting any trees as he swerved to avoid dives from the nevermores while creating enough of a stable platform for the others to return fire, and Linda, well she was working on the gun that was embedded in the back of the truck.

"Access denied, authorized personnel required to unlock restraints,"

 _How come whoever designed this never thought that maybe someone who wasn't bureaucratically authorized would need to use a gun?_ She thought frustratedly.

One of the dog things got close enough to lunge at her, as she was the one closest to the bumper, but Jaune was there, shoving with his shield and sending it tumbling into the forest.

Linda was about to rip it out of the bed of the truck when she remembered something from UNSC soldiers, they almost never took a key code off default settings, which was usually the name of the manufacturer.

She looked over at a keypad she had previously ignored and punched in a code based off a hunch

Schnee (724633)

It beeped, she was in.

The gun swung smoothly as she pulled it out of the bed of the truck and aimed it at the approaching coyotes, pulling the trigger and feeling the kick of the gun as it tore through the line of Grimm, turning them to black dust and shreds of bone.

Linda then took her aim and moved it toward the sky. The first nevermore had a wing clipped from its body almost instantly, and it fell to the forest floor with a distant thud. The other two quickly split, each diving at the truck from different sides.

Ruby followed the left one with her rifle and Linda spun the turret to fire at the one to the right. Linda's bird disintegrated with a hail of bullets, but Ruby's just shuddered in the air after being hit with two rounds from Crescent Rose.

Linda spun and threw one of her axes, hooking it, the line instantly going taut. She was almost pulled off her feet but Jaune grabbed onto the line and managed to hold the bird in place, Ruby took aim and fired into the back of the bird's brain, bringing it down as well.

Linda reeled in her cable and axe, letting out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding and folded down the gun then vaulting into the passenger seat, settling in for the rest of the day.

That night, Linda was on watch, and as everyone else quickly rolled out their bedrolls and went to sleep, Linda hopped into the branches of a tree and took out her rifle, cleaning it as much as she could without disassembling it, while her armor sensed what she needed and prioritized her motion tracker and other sensor data, diverting power and enlarging their respective displays on her HUD.

Half an hour later she saw Jaune rise and grab his weapons and scroll, then walk away from camp and into the woods. Naturally, Linda was curious so she hopped across some branches to where she could see the clearing Jaune was in, while still keeping an eye on the camp. He set up his scroll on top of a large rock, and turned it on, swiping a few times and pulling up a video of Pyrrha, a tentative smile broke his face upon seeing her, but was quickly replaced by an expression of determination as he readied his weapons and the recording led him through a series of drills and exercises with his sword and shield.

He got tired quickly, but pushed on, continuously pushing himself, and Linda respected that, even if he had a long way to go.

During a break in the exercises, Pyrrha's recording started talking about something else, "Just remember Jaune, you can't just do these drills and exercises, you have to find people to practice with, that will help a lot more than you think, even if you can't seem to win. And don't forget, I'll be there to help you with whatever you need,"

Linda could see a tear or two start to form as Jaune readied his weapons and got into his stance again, she was conflicted, she had gone through the exact same thing after augmentation, throwing herself at her training harder than ever to try to numb or at least ignore the loss of green team, but how was she supposed to help this boy, that she barely even knew, with emotions she didn't even understand when they plagued her.

Linda cleared her head, heading quietly back over to her original spot and leaving Jaune to his training and grief, leaving what she was bad at (feelings), and going back to what she was good at (watching) for a few more hours before she woke John and went to sleep with her rifle beside her.

The group passed through a small village and Jaune paid the blacksmith to incorporate some of Pyrrha's armor into his own as Ren put it, "to honor the fallen and carry them with us,"

There was a silence that perpetuated until they were loading back into the truck when John said, "we lost a comrade recently too, but that time there was nothing left to recover," he paused, realizing that this was just another aspect of their life that was classified, "after the incident,"

Ruby's face remained upbeat, seeming not to completely understand the statement, "but that just means they could be fine and you could still find them right?"

Linda turned in her seat as the truck accelerated and looked at the girl, marveling at her innocence, "something like that…"

Linda turned back around, setting a hand on John's shoulder, knowing Sam was a touchy subject for him and RNJR seemed content to go back to talking to themselves

A while later Ren leaned up to the front, saying, "Next village is coming up in about five minutes, it's small, but this map isn't exactly new."

John nodded and continued until they arrived just in front of the village's main gate and parked the truck. The whole group piled out, some excited to meet new people and others apprehensive, remembering what had happened to a village very much like this one.

The six of them walked through the gates and looked around, expecting to see at least some sign of life, but nothing moved, not even the air.

John spoke up, "does this look like a Grimm attack to any of you," referring to the dilapidated buildings and clearly deserted town.

Ruby's smile slid off her face but Ren was the one who spoke up first, saying, "probably, but quite a while ago by the looks of it, see, those caved in roofs with those lines on the exposed rafters, that's what happens when Nevermores get really big."

Nora was making an expression that John had never seen before on the girl, a distant fear, like a bad memory was surfacing, but she shook it off and pointed to a building larger than the rest, "let's see if they left any record in the town hall...or church thing...probably the same thing in a town this small,"

Everyone nodded and started walking towards the building she had pointed out, Linda leading the group and John bringing up the rear, each holding their rifle in a low-ready position.

Linda carefully entered the church, scanning and immediately seeing a major problem. She quickly ducked back out of the church and motioned for the team to stop, telling John over TEAMCOM to watch her helmet feed, while sending him a quick summary of her conclusions from it. Almost immediately she saw a slight shift in his posture, signaling he was prepared for combat.

Linda quietly said to the assembled RNJR, "What you are about to see in there is probably horrifying to someone like you, but DO NOT RUN TO IT, this situation has trap written all over it, but we need to turn around whatever trap this is."

All four nodded solemnly and hoisted weapons, but John shook his head, "we need to look fairly unprepared, be ready, but try not to show it, keep weapons in a casual carry." They nodded again, this time more hesitantly and they walked in.

Tyrian watched the little bugs scurry through the town towards his hidey hole, then the tall one with too many eyes ducked into the church, when she saw his art she scurried out again, clearly unable to appreciate the value of the beauty contained in it. Once outside he saw her being consoled by her friends, no doubt terrified of his power and needing comfort.

After shifting a moment the whole group edged through the door, the other tall green one leading, followed by the quiet boy with long hair and the loud one with the hammer, behind them came the smallest one, holding a weapon clearly too big for her, probably unprepared he thought, the other one beside her was tall, but seemed easy to push over, not quite seeming perfectly comfortable with the sword and shield in his hands, the final one was the one with too many eyes. Tyrian watched their reactions with glee, the two tall green ones showed no reaction, much to his disappointment, but the others, he drank in their pain and terror like a starving Grimm, reveling in it.

Not able to wait any longer, he cackled with glee and dropped down on top of them.

John knew what was coming, but seeing a body suspended from a rope in the center of the church, limbs contorted at unnatural angles, frozen in place, covered in scratches and scrapes, and with a massive hole punched through his chest stopped the non-Spartans in their tracks from shock.

Suddenly an unidentified blip appeared on his motion tracker directly hind and above him, John spun and a man with a scorpion tail was lunging at him from the ceiling in a spin, John used his left bracer to block the first bladed gauntlet and the tail then shifted his weapon off his shoulder to dodge the second blade swipe clearly meant to disarm him and he sprayed a burst of bullets into the man's spinning form Rambo style.

Linda was the next to act, placing a round into the side of his head which dissipated against his aura, but the accuracy and speed of the shot were astounding. The attacker seemed sad that the two Spartans weren't cowering in terror and ran out of the church on all fours, vanishing into the village.

The sound of guns firing seemed to shake RNJR out of their trance, and all four of them turned around just in time to see Tyrian running out the door.

Jaune was the first to speak, "Did that—did he do this?" he said, horrified.

John simply nodded, then started giving out orders, "Ruby and Jaune, he probably thinks you two are less competent, purely by size or stance, we'll use that, but be ready to hit him hard when I give the word," despite each of them being team leaders normally, they instantly recognized the authority and knowledge in John's voice and they nodded. John continued, "Nora, you stay with them as close support, look as much like you are protecting them as possible. Ren, get in and out, hitting him when you can and disappearing, keep him guessing. Linda, find a spot and cover us, I will try to engage directly. He will probably try to isolate targets and use his speed and unpredictability to hit you and avoid damage, if he starts getting too close, start fighting as defensive as you can, Linda can and will hit him.

Ren and Linda hung back behind the main group, planning to disappear once the man was distracted with the others, the rest of RNJR moved in a pack ahead of them, a mix of determination and nervousness, they were used to very obvious fighting, and these ambushes, tactics, trickery, and short fights were making them nervous. John walked ahead of the group just enough to seem isolated.

John rounded a corner into an alleyway just as planned, and he saw a flicker of motion, spinning, John brought up his left hand, and sure enough, the man was there, creepy smile, eyes and all. John slammed his gauntlet around the man's neck, simultaneously choking him and pinning him to the wall, and John moved his right to block the scorpion tail he knew would be coming, only to find it snaking around the other side of the man with unnatural speed.

It shot towards him, and John could do nothing as it sliced through the space between his shoulder pad and his chest piece on his collarbone, finding a way through the tech suit and slicing the skin beneath.

The wound burned, but John redoubled his efforts of cutting off the man's air supply, so focused he was that he lost track of one of his prisoner's arms, and saw the barrels attached to the blades on his arm pointed directly at his face.

Linda was up on the roof of the second tallest building in the town, as it overlooked Main Street, where John said he'd lure the man.

Suddenly a sign popped up on her visor, a single flash of a red light where John's acknowledgment light would normally show, he needed help.

She looked at where he was supposed to be, and saw his crumpled form lying in the alley, and that strange man standing over him laughing and rubbing his throat.

Linda froze, at least internally, as she took aim and fired at the man, her mind didn't quite process the fact that John could be dead. The large, high velocity bullet impacted Tyrian's aura directly in front of his eye, and for a second it looked as if it didn't do anything but damage the aura of the insane man, but a **SNAP** was heard at the aura popped.

The bullet had most of its momentum dispelled, but it was still heading towards a sensitive area, and continue it did.

Tyrian howled in pain, his one good eye searching, and spying Linda he screamed again and sprinted towards her.

RNJR stepped out and intercepted him, Ren behind him and the others a few feet in front of the raging faunus. Tyrian set upon the group with the fury of a cornered animal, immediately lunging close enough to Ruby that she couldn't maneuver her scythe and slashing her multiple times before she was able to use the massive recoil from her gun to fly back uncontrolled into a building behind her.

Nora jumped at him from above with her hammer in a predictable downward swing which he dodged, then jumped as Ren appeared from behind and attempted to slash at the back of Tyrian's legs. The faunus appeared to dash through both of them as he slashed at them almost faster than they could see, much less block. As a final blow he popped both their auras with simultaneous blasts from his guns, knocking them both out.

Jaune was shocked as he was left alone all of a sudden in just a few seconds, he made a valiant effort, but he had no chance, his few sword swipes parried away as Tyrian played with him and muttered, "You all will make such nice pieces of art, I can't wait to watch you hang." He descended into another fit of cackling as he shoved Jaune on top of where Ruby was just recovering from her unplanned impact.

Linda saw the man start to approach and be intercepted by RNJR, but her vision narrowed down to one point, John, sitting there, unmoving, the same spartan who had always seen her in training and always seemed to admire her, always understand her, he was the only one who would see when she ddn't want to talk or do anything but just be near someone and have his presence next to her. He had always been the lucky one, a warthog crash that had broken the bones of multiple Spartans during training, and he had walked away with a few bruises, but turned right back around to help the others.

To think a light like that had been snuffed out by this—Animal, Linda couldn't bear it, this would not be his legacy. Her vision snapped back to the present, and the man had taken out RNJR and was coming toward her.

Linda drew her sidearm and lunged off of the building at him. His tail extended to stab her mid-air, but she was faster, or at least moving first, she took aim and pulled the trigger. The tip of the scorpion tail exploded, splattering blood and goo all over the ground below, with her other hand Linda grabbed his neck and carried him down with her, slamming him to the ground headfirst.

Linda stood up and aimed her pistol at his head, and only was stopped from immediately pulling the trigger by Ruby suddenly grabbing her arm and moving it down. Ruby made a desperate plea, "Don't kill him, he's beaten already, we don't want to lower ourselves to his level, please?"

Her face radiated emotional pain, but Linda simply said, barely above a whisper, "Not after what he did to John," Judging by Ruby's expression, she heard, but her arm did not budge from Linda's.

Unfazed, Linda's boot quickly shot up, then down on the man's neck, quickly ending any hopes of mercy.

Linda immediately ran over to John's crumpled form and pulled off his helmet. His breaths were ragged, but there, and Linda let out something between a sob and a sigh of relief, not trusting her face or the expressions she was making right now, she left her helmet on.

John's eyes fluttered open, and he seemed a little confused, "Linda?" He said, looking at her faceplate. She only swept two fingers over where her mouth would be to give him a smile, then against every sense in her body, pulled him into a hug.

 **AN: I sincerely apologize for that taking so long, but sports and school together mean no free time, plus writers block for a bit will play hell with a story, but it's done now, and next is Fred (corn dogs anyone?)**

 **I have not watched vol 7 yet, so no spoilers please, like I said, no free time.**

 **Also I'm not great with feelings, so I don't know if some of those scenes turned out, but if there are any comments you have, please let me know, I would like to improve in that area, but don't really know where to start.**

 **Review Responses:**

 **Red October 700: Yeah, opportunities with Ilia and character development stemming from her, or at least more moral ambiguity, as for corndog, next chapter, other than that, thanks for reading, and good luck with your own stories.**

 **NlaEid: I'm sorry about that, I'll try to go in and fix it soon, or at least when I have time.**

 **Psihopatul: Taiyang always seemed really chill, and I wrote him that way, so not much reaction there, but hope you liked this chapter and stick with me through Fred's arc, which I don't really know how it is going to go at the moment, but I'll figure it out and hopefully have it done soon.**

 **Just a reader (guest): while yes, the covenant finding there way in is certainly possible, this is my first attempt at writing a story, so I am planning to stick mainly to people I know how to write, but you might have given me a few ideas for closer to the end of the story, or at least the epilogue, thanks for reading, and the covenant/elites are too cool of a faction not to write about at some point, even if it is in a different story.**

 **PanzerJ (guest): Don't worry, I see almost eye to eye with you on the whole shipping situation and I definitely understand what you mean, and you are correct with the time assumptions, just a bit after Sam's death, and Linda has been with the team for a short time.**

 **As for my top 5 Spartan 2/3s**

 **5.) Kat, I feel she doesn't get much credit for the fact that she is really good with tech and even helped design multiple pieces of tech that end up getting used by the other Spartans and the UNSC as a whole, (new prosthetic tech, ways to overload safety restrictions on MJOLNIR among others**

 **4.) Naomi, her story in Kilo Five is just too good**

 **3.) Jorge, probably the first real friendly face I remember from my early gaming days, plus I played long night of solace A LOT**

 **2.) Any member of Blue team could fill this spot for me (one exception), and each for their own reason, Sam, John, Kelly, Fred, they are all amazing, but they get a lot of attention in lore**

 **1.) Linda, (did you really expect anything else) Amazing markswoman, literally came back from the dead, first spartan other than chief to appear in the games, (as an Easter egg/ player two in Halo CE depending on who you talk to), plus I really like her kit, voice acting, and gun in Halo 5. (I could go on, but I really shouldn't).**


	19. Chapter 19

Fred continually drifted in and out of consciousness, seeing the inside of a transport ship, the open sky, then a hospital's white ceiling, then he felt the grogginess that came with anesthesia, then his eyes closed and he slipped into a dreamless sleep.

Fred's eyes slipped open a bit, and he returned to the land of the living, he heard a nurse and a doctor conversing, "I hate having to deal with the academy's trainees," the nurse muttered.

The doctor voiced her agreement, "I know, there were three kids that I had to spend over an hour on each digging shrapnel out of because they set off a grenade right in their own faces, and they were just wearing those stupid battle skirts that give little protection ever since the tournament."

Fred was still a bit out of it, and his drug addled mind decided it was a good idea to join the conversation despite the fact that a large portion of his chest cavity was open and they were actively pulling glass shards out of his ribcage. He mumbled, "Oh man, I hate when tha happens, Sam did tha a few months ago essept-I-I think he used a nuke or-or somethin," The nurse's face was absolutely priceless, and it was the last thing he saw as he felt more sedative being administered almost immediately.

Dr. Jade Honeydew was at the grocery a few floors down from her apartment in the lower city of Atlas when someone in a crisp white suit appeared behind her, a military issue suit, "Dr. Honeydew," he addressed her, "You are requested at upper city hospital A-2 and I am to escort you there immediately,"

Jade turned around as she grabbed a bushel of some leafy vegetable off a shelf and waved it in the man's face, "First I will be putting these," she used the vegetable to gesture at the rest of her groceries for the week that she had just paid for, "to my fridge, I'm not paying for two weeks of groceries when I only need one because the first got spoiled because you rushed me up there to some cadets who blew themselves up again,"

The man's impassive face broke for a second, clearly stressed, "Ma'am please, we need to get going now,"

Jade looked at her watch, stalling for time, a small little _ting_ in her head, and she was set, "Ensign Castleton, I will be heading up to my apartment, and if you attempt to stop me I will report to your command that you are unfit for duty due to your crippling anxiety that is set off by Ursa and uncomfortable social situations,"

The man froze and color completely drained from his face and he spoke, his voice losing the calm composure it had just seconds before, "of—of course, I'll help you carry your stuff ma'am,"

Jade smiled, which she retrospectively realized probably set the man, boy really, more on edge despite what she attempted, and shook her head, "No thanks, you'd just get in the way, I'll be back in about five minutes." She pushed past him, and he seemed to shrink back into the wall.

Four minutes and fifty four seconds later Jade came back down the stairs while throwing on a coat and putting on a backpack.

The ensign had regained his composure, and his eyes flicked to her waist, "do you know how to use that?" He gestured to the holster filled with a large suppressed service pistol that she was covering with her long coat.

"Would you believe me if I said no?" Jade said, raising an eyebrow.

Half an hour later Jade walked into the hospital and was quickly directed to her new patient, she walked into the room and looked at her patient, the boy was tall, really tall, blonde, and highly muscular, but the face of the boy looked considerably younger than the rest of him.

Jade could feel her semblance working in her head as she did an inspection of any possible wounds. She saw long healed scars, some clearly from large surgeries, others from gunshots or stabs or various other things.

Jade peeled back the bandages around his chest and winced as she recognized the wounds, this kid had been shot in the gut, point blank too, he had apparently been able to seal it with some sort of medical sealant that whichever nurse had been attending to him hadn't removed, then after some time he had a sword stabbed through him, and further inspection revealed nothing but a few bruises, but that was to be expected with a huntsman.

Jade stepped out of the room, hoping to find someone to explain the situation and was surprised when general Ironwood stood just outside the door, "Sir!" Jade straightened into a salute.

"At ease Doctor," the general said, "I'm here to explain."

He paused, composing himself, she guessed he had just come out of some frustrating meeting, then he spoke, "your patient in there participated in the Vytal festival as a tournament combatant, and we know nothing other than that of his backstory. We saw him first in an elevator in Beacon Academy in Vale pinned to a wall by a glass sword through his gut, he proceeded to remove the sword himself and walk approximately 40 feet past our soldiers and approach me before he fell on his front unconscious. He was also wearing an extremely advanced suit of armor which our engineers are currently puzzling out, nothing by Atlesian make that we can tell so far."

Jade furrowed her brow, "I'm assuming you want me to fix him for more reason than just being a Good Samaritan,"

"Let's just say we need to question him for...purposes of discovery and the betterment of Atlas"

Jade just shrugged, "a patient is a patient," she said over her shoulder as she entered the hospital room again.

Jade was operating on the patient when he suddenly awoke in the middle of having glass removed from his interior and made his strange drug addled statement, after that she was even more curious about him, more than the fact that her semblance still hadn't finished.

Approximately 27 hours passed before Jade's semblance finished its work, it usually didn't take nearly this long, usually at most 10 hours for a full activation. Jade was asleep on the couch by the window of her patient's room (her semblance would reset if she left the target of its power), and as soon as the telltale _ting_ of the completion of the medical scan finished she bolted upright, instantly awake at the possibility of questions answered.

Jade scanned the report in her mind's eye, and it was long, and a lot of it was just various injuries with nothing more than a note of "sustained in training, now healed," Next to it.

Then she started to get to the weird stuff, his bones had been laced with metal, his eyes changed to have perfect vision in almost any light, muscles greatly augmented, changing the speed of the brain and muscles increasing intelligence and decreasing reaction time. She looked at him, even the best doctors of Atlas would never think of trying to improve someone in a way like this, they just didn't have the tech or the knowledge.

She kept looking and finally found what she was looking for, the more recent injuries that hadn't healed yet. The first thing that popped up was records that seemed to agree with the fact that he had fought in the tournament, then shortly after, the bullet wound, her semblance gave her the info she needed, regular dust round, fire dust, but it never detonated, just blew through him. After that came the sword, which was apparently incredibly hot at the time of the injury, barely solid in fact, that didn't make sense, the wound wasn't cauterized.

Jade just went into the small bathroom in the hospital room and showered quickly before changing into her scrubs and stepping back out ready to operate. She had operated solo plenty of times, especially with her time as a combat medic, and she preferred it, so she didn't even bother calling the on duty nurse in.

She quickly opened the patient up after administering more anesthetics, stemming internal bleeding, correcting a bit of the hip bone, and sewing him back up, she also noticed his shoulder was a little off and she popped it back to the correct position. Suddenly the past day caught up to her and Jade trudged back into the bathroom after cleaning up and changed back into her sweats and crawled back onto the couch to sleep.

Jade wiped the sleep from her eyes and sat up on the couch, looking around the room, then promptly had a miniature panic attack when her patient, which her semblance had told her his name was Fred, was not in his bed.

Jade frantically looked around the room, checking the bathroom, the bed, anywhere and everywhere looking for any clue as to where he could have gone. The mystery was solved as she heard a soft click as the door closed and she whirled around, and there he stood, a sheepish grin on his face and a tray full of food in his hands.

Jade was shocked he was up this soon, and honestly a little impressed, but Fred broke the tension between them by saying, "I was hungry, no corndogs, but they have waffles, and I grabbed extra in case you wanted some,"

Jade did want some, but she needed to put her patient first, "I'm guessing you already know where you are supposed to be, judging purely by the fact that you tried to sneak back in here without me noticing. Just lie back down, please don't force me to make you,"

Fred just shrugged nonchalantly, "What are you, my mom? I'm going to finish my food, then I need to figure out where my stuff is,"

Jade sighed, then pulled her trump card, something she had inherited from both her parents, puppy eyes from her mom, and the disappointed dad face from her father, the combination had made General Ironwood cave in an argument, and that was something that never happened.

Fred looked at her, and his face seemed to melt as he took in the face, the disgruntled hair, the sweatpants and tank top she had slept in. Fred's chin dropped to his chest in defeat, then he trudged over to the bed and sat down, setting his tray of food down next to him.

Jade walked over to him and did a quick check of his injuries, and was surprised to find that he was mostly normal, even the holes in his chest seemed to be mostly healed, _even aura doesn't heal that quickly_ she thought, and she stepped back to look over the updated record from her semblance.

Fred silently held out a waffle on a paper plate to her, and when she took it, he started working on his own food. Jade continued looking through the records, and sure enough, most of his injuries were healed, and the stitches would be able to come off in just under 2 hours.

She mentally closed the report, confused and said through a mouthful of waffle, "How in the world do you heal so fast?"

Fred shrugged, "honestly I don't really know, and its probably classified anyway, but I did eat Linda's gummy vitamins one morning as well as my own when we were like 8, she blamed Kelly though,"

Jade noted that he was definitely military, but apparently not Atlesian, then the second part of the sentence caught her off guard and she lost her train of thought in a fit of laughter.

Fred smiled, then said, "I think you pull off the just rolled out of bed look really well, but the nurse is making her rounds and should be here in about 5 minutes and you should probably try to look a little more, uh, professional."

Jade nodded, getting her expression back under control, "I'm guessing you saw her down the hall when you were coming back from your breakfast expedition,"

Fred gave her a thumbs up as she turned around to go change, then went back to his food.

Fred had no idea why he appeared to be this doctor's only patient, or why she seemed to be his roommate, but he liked her, enough to business to get things done, but also laid back enough to laugh.

An hour later the nurse came by again, "you have a visitor, Mr.—" she paused, clearly looking at her sheet for a last name, then continued, "—Kurt, the visitor has requested that Dr. Honeydew leave the room,"

Jade nodded, "As long as the visitor is ok with me standing just outside the door so my semblance doesn't disconnect, that is fine with me."

The nurse ducked away for 30 seconds, then came back, "he's ok with that," she said. Fred's hopes fell, it clearly wasn't Kelly or Linda, but could still be John, and he finished off his waffles as Jade walked out the door.

Jade stood outside the door and waited, looking for who this visitor was, and her jaw almost hit the floor when Jacques Schnee walked past her and into the room. She watched the silhouettes of the two talking for about 5 minutes, then saw as Jacques walked back out with a completely neutral expression.

Jade rushed back into the room, sitting down where Jacques had been just moments before and asked Fred excitedly, "what'd he say, and why in the world did you have one of the most powerful men in the world as your visitor,"

Fred looked like he had an epiphany, "oh, that's why he got frustrated when I told him I had no idea who he is, and all he really said was asking me in different ways if I would sell him my equipment,"

Jade sat back bewildered, "that was Jacques Schnee, the owner of the biggest and most influential company in the world, what'd you tell him?"

Fred looked her dead in the eye, "No,"

Two hours later Jade removed the stitches and was finally able to disconnect her semblance and go take a break, so she had gone and grabbed a coffee, then went to the corner of the cafeteria she usually went to and sat down to drink it.

She couldn't help but overhear the gossip going on at the booth next to her among a group of nurses, "I heard Jacques Schnee was here today!"

"I know! He was supposedly taking some special interest in one patient, and plans to take him to his own estate to take care of him,"

"No way! That lucky bastard gets to see the Schnee mansion in person!"

"Do you know why though?"

"Not really, but apparently Ironwood found out and was furious,"

Jade stood back up and quickly swallowed the rest of her coffee, then made her way back up to Fred's room as quickly as she could.

When she arrived he was sitting on his bed with a laptop, which she recognized as one of the hospital's that was issued to staff, and some jeans and a shirt that were definitely not provided by the hospital, she decided to waive the theft and get straight to business, "We need to move, now."

Fred closed the laptop and looked confused, "Why?"

Jade grabbed her bag from the couch and threw it over her shoulder, "That man you said no to is very powerful, and plans to take you to his personal clinic where he will have no consequences to anything he does, even though I already cleared you, and more than likely plans to do something not so nice because you pissed him off,"

Fred stood up immediately and snapped into some sort of different mode, "I need to find my gear before he gets his hands on it, and I think I know where to find it,"

Jade nodded, "I'll lead until we get out of the hospital, then you can take the front,"

Fred nodded and followed her out the door.

Once they arrived on the street Fred took a second to look around, then immediately struck off towards the airport. They arrived on foot, and instead of heading towards the normal airport, he headed towards the private airfield.

They ended up crawling through the waist high grass close to the hangars and approaching the multiple that belonged to the Schnee family.

Jade spoke up, "Do you actually have a plan, or are you just browsing?"

Fred shot back, "You said he was planning to have me shipped to his clinic right? I figured we might as well just show up and say we were invited,"

Jade opened her mouth to protest, but just couldn't argue the statement.

"That should not have worked," Jade said as they strolled onto a small cargo hopper bound for a Schnee laboratory in the lower city, they had just acted like they belonged, and they had only been questioned by one person, who Jade had explained that she was Fred's medical escort, and they were to head to the lab with his gear to demonstrate how to properly use it, and it was all Mr. Schnee's orders of course, and he had waved them through.

The cargo hopper took off, then quickly dived towards the city, making way for military traffic at the higher altitudes, settling in to a height just 20 feet above the buildings.

Fred casually asked Jade, "Where's your apartment?"

Jade gave him a puzzled look, "28th street, second building from the intersection with 3rd, odd side of the street. Why?"

"Hold on," was Fred's only response as he looked out the window, then smacked the ramp lowering button.

The roar of wind filled the cabin as Fred shoved the box full of his gear out the back ramp while simultaneously scooping up Jade and jumping out of the moving hopper, managing to smack the close button on the way out.

Jade was absolutely shocked at what had just occurred, and she let out a bit of a scream, but then her military training kicked in and she remembered the instructions for tandem jumps, so she pulled close to Fred and did her best to line up her center of mass to make it easy for him to balance, but she was shocked as the roof of a building came up to meet them and Fred landed in a perfect roll, managing to come out of it with minimal damage to both parties.

Jade looked around, this was her building alright, there were Mr. Daveed's Petunias, and that was Mrs. Tamarind's pigeon, and she laughed at the sheer insanity of what they had just done.

Fred shoved his large box of gear over to the elevator and waved her over, gesturing to her to hit the button for the correct floor. Jade hit the button for her floor and they descended.

In Jade's apartment Fred started unboxing his gear, his whole set of armor was there, his BR55, and most of his knives. A cursory examination of his armor revealed that some of the stuff had already been messed with, but he would have to have it on to run a full diagnostic.

 _Schnee will pay for those two knives he lost_ Fred thought, but that would have to wait, he needed to get to his team, find out if Kelly—if the whole team was safe.

He heard Jade mumbling to herself in the bathroom mirror, "Alright Honeydew, you just helped someone you barely know steal, escape from, and piss off possibly the most powerful man in Atlas, maybe even the world, you then jumped out of a moving plane, landed on your roof, woke up all the neighbors, and who knows what's going to happen next, but everything is fine, at least this time your groceries aren't spoiled…"

She continued for a bit longer, but Fred just shook his head and started putting on his armor.

Jade walked back into the room just as Fred was about to put on his helmet, so he waited to put it on. She sat down on the couch across from where he was standing and assembling his weapons and equipment and she said, "So what now? You aren't at immediate risk from anything and you have your…" she trailed off at the sheer amount of weapons contained in the crate, "That can't possibly all be yours, Ironwood said he recovered you without any stuff that wasn't on your person."

Fred looked at her, then back at the crate, "Not all of it is mine, just most,"

Jade shook her head in disbelief, _as if that answers the question_.

Fred put on his helmet and set some diagnostics running before looking back at Jade, "To answer your original question I have four main goals, first is to find the rest of my team, second is to get home, third, find something to eat, preferably a corndog, and fourth to find out if Schnee has data or schematics on my gear and if so to get rid of the data.

Jade nodded, "At least you have a plan, and I can help with objective number three, and I might have an idea to help you with number four."

Fred pulled off his helmet and his eyes lit up, "you have a tactical upgrade and a corndog? This is almost the best day ever,"

"Not exactly, I know where you can get food and I'll even buy some for you, and my idea is to paint you like a knight so you can walk into almost anywhere with little to no opposition, though only if you can act like a robot."

Fred replied, "I can do that, but do you have enough paint?"

Jade nodded, "Probably, but I'm going to go buy some more just in case, and you can some with me and we'll stop by a street vendor to get you a corndog."

"I feel bad having you pay for all this, are you sure you are ok with it?" Fred asked Jade as they walked away from the old street vendor who looked strangely familiar.

Jade raised the hand she wasn't carrying paint with in a flippant motion, "I already told you, It's fine, I'm a doctor, and am paid accordingly. I could probably buy that whole stand and not have to compromise on my budget."

Back at the apartment Fred started taking off his armor pieces and painting them white while Jade was assembling a meal "significantly more substantial than a corndog"

A few hours later the last piece of newly painted armor clicked into place and Jade stepped back as Fred admired his new paint job in the bathroom mirror, "A bit to flashy for my taste,"

Jade just shook her head, "It'll be perfect camouflage for snow, and you look like a prototype knight, which is the important part. Now where do we go to find and wipe this data?"

"That lab my stuff was supposed to go to earlier."

The two stood outside the lab on the opposite side of the street, it was pretty easy to spot, it even was marked on the Schnee company website as a research facility.

"Jade you're going to have to lead, I'm just a prototype robot remember?" Fred said as they crossed the street and he fell into step behind her. Jade nodded and opened the door, revealing a fairly standard lobby with a bored looking receptionist behind the counter.

The woman behind the counter perked up as she realized that she had visitors, "State your business Ma'am tours are over for the day."

Jade spoke up, sounding considerably more confident than she had outside just minutes before, "Actually I'm an intern at another research center and I was told to bring this prototype knight for its routine data dump and download, and our servers are currently under maintinence, and we can't really interrupt the rhythm of a prototype because that would create another independent variable."

The poor woman looked overwhelmed and unsure of what to do, Jade decided to put a little more pressure on and glanced down at her watch, "I've got ten minutes before it needs to happen,"

The woman seemed to panic a bit, then just said, "Down the hall, third door on the right, end of that hall is an elevator to the data vault and comm center."

Jade smiled, "Thank you thank you thankyou," as she rushed down the hall with Fred in tow.

Fred took the lead just as they got to the elevator, and pulled Jade past it, "what are you doing?" She hissed in his ear.

"I found some building blueprints online," Fred said, pulling her into a janitorial closet just behind the elevator, then started feeling around on the floor.

His finger found a little groove in the floor and he tugged on it, revealing a trapdoor on the floor and a ladder that folded down into a large server room with large so outer screens and terminals about twenty feet below them.

"Old builder's access hatch from before the elevator was put in, they are almost instantly forgotten about once people move in." Fred explained, then descended the ladder, telling Jade to wait.

Fred spent ten minutes looking for any sort of equipment that looked like his, and found it fairly quickly, he started to try to tell if it had been sent anywhere else, or if this was the only location when the door slid open at the front of the chamber and a scientist walked in. Fred jumped up and grabbed onto the ladder ten feet above the ground, hauling himself up and out of sight.

The man walked over to the terminal Fred had been using and sat down, looking at the screen puzzled as it wasn't supposed to be active.

Fred dropped down behind him silently and wrapped an armored arm around his neck. The man brought his arms up to his neck in shock as his air supply was suddenly cut off, and Fred held his tight grip until the man fell limp and unconscious, then continued his search, finding that most of the data was only stored here, but the data for a BR55 battle rifle had been mass distributed. He sighed resignedly, there was no way to erase that, but he could still wipe the rest of the data. Fred quickly cleared the databanks of any reference to his armor, power coming from anything but dust, and what he considered "regular" bullets before climbing back up to meet Jade.

When he folded up the ladder and closed the trapdoor she whispered at him angrily, "you could have crushed his esophagus!"

Fred looked at her, "at least then he wouldn't have to worry about what happens if he's found sleeping on the job."

"But he's just some random scientist, I'm only helping you with this to get back at Jacques after he tried to stunt my career after I told him his bad parenting could negatively affect his kids' health."Fred replied sarcastically, "Oh? I thought you just liked causing chaos,"

Jade sighed and started to walk out the door towards the lobby and the street with Fred snickering silently behind her.

 **AN: Alright, Fred's chapter is done, hope I didn't disappoint. Next I'm hoping to finish each of the three arcs I've started, but we shall see.**

 **With Corona going around I've had a lot more time to write which has been nice, Try not to get infected and I will see you next chapter.**

 **Also please let me know what you think of Dr. Honeydew, she's my first real attempt at writing an OC**

 **Review Responses:**

 **PanzerJ: Yeah, the reason he got injured is lack of experience, that and the plot demanded it, but you are right, luck = plot armor, so he isn't going to die.**

 **Kat's death, it was just...frustrating, especially after seeing her getting hit in the face with a wraith shell in Sword Base… multiple times. But oh well, at least we can replay the campaign and have Kat drive us off another cliff.**

 **Thanks for your feedback, it means a lot.**

 **Just a Reader: Yeah, he really did deserve to die, and with extreme prejudice.**

 **Don't sell yourself short, any idea is a large contribution.**

 **Thanks for the support, and don't worry, I will keep writing.**

 **Red October 700: Without plot demanding it, Tyrian would probably have to get lucky in order to puncture the suit, but this is Gen I, maybe Gen II armor, details on early MJOLNIR are scarce in the lore.**

 **Thanks again for the support, and I hope to hear from you again soon.**


	20. Chapter 20

Kelly had been given a room to stay in at the back corner of the house, which was fine with her, it meant she didn't have to interact with people much, but she thought it was intentional, as her room was a small study with a large couch instead of a bed, even though there were multiple open guest rooms in the large Belladonna estate.

Kelly spent most of her time working on equipment (the saltwater from the trip over wasn't good for most of her stuff) and scouting the area around the house, getting to know it like the back of her hand and, with the permission of Mr. and Mrs. Belladonna, making it a bit more, "defensible."

The House guards didn't really seem to trust this new guest, especially when they realized Kelly was watching as well, albeit unseen, and it creeped most of the guards out and set them on edge. The rumor started circulating that this new guest would prey on lone guards and use them for practice, so they started patrolling in pairs, and more on edge.

Blake eventually heard about it and went to confront Kelly, or at least tell her, and she found the spartan hanging upside down from a crossbeam affixing a thermal camera to the edge of the roof. Blake crossed her arms and leaned against a wall, "Hey Kelly do you know what the guards are saying about you?"

Kelly didn't turn away from her work, "That I'm some Atlesian boogeyman?"

"No, well, uh," Blake sputtered, "That you sneak around and stalk people, and hunt the guards for practice. I'm pretty sure those are unfounded, but I wanted to check with you and make sure you were doing okay, It has got to be hard being probably the only human on the island,"

Kelly shrugged, "I know where the rumor came from, and I'm pretty sure I'm ok, the burns from your assassin friend are healing quickly,"

Blake looked relieved, "that's good,"—"wait," she paused narrowing her eyes, "what do you mean you know how the rumor started?"

Kelly disconnected herself from the ceiling and flipped, landing in front of Blake, "One of the guards, Tucker, catcalled me on my way back to my room from a workout out of armor, I sort of," Kelly paused awkwardly, "stalked him on his balcony watches for a few days, maybe scared him once or twice,"

Blake shook her head, "I want to be mad, but I can't blame you, but now they are all scared of you and patrol in pairs."

Kelly nodded, "good, that'll improve their effectiveness, the second part at least,"

Blake sighed, "Next time just please tell me or my parents,"

Kelly nodded and looked at her scroll to test the new camera as Blake walked out the door.

That night at dinner Mr. Belladonna asked Blake and Sun how their recruitment campaign was going. Blake hung her head in her hands and Sun held up a finger, "Not great, but it can only get better from here,"

Blake replied scathingly, "by that he means we have made no progress and recruited no one,"

Mr. Belladonna continued looking grumpy, and offered no change in facial expression, but Mrs. Belladonna smiled comfortingly, "Don't worry, people will come, just give them time and they will realize what's right,"

Kelly swallowed a bite of food and added, "I've learned to always plan on what you have or less, and never count on more, so it's probably best to come up with at least some plan assuming you can't make any progress, but that's just me."

Sun frowned, "That's just pessimistic,"

Mr. Belladonna fixed the boy with a hard stare, "It's practical."

A few nights later Kelly was walking through the sandy forest behind the house when one of her proximity alarms went off. She checked the cameras, and sure enough, white fang assassins were approaching the house from the south west and the east, Kelly quickly activated her "defenses," alerting the guard captain in the process, and moved quickly to the east and the closer group of assassins.

column of assassins moved through the forest in close formation, clearly still thinking they were undetected.

Kelly knew since these were Faunus the dark did not lend her any advantage, so she had covered herself in sand and was laying perfectly still just along the edge of the path.

As soon as the column passed her, Kelly carefully rose to her feet, ready to spring. She waited for the white fang to advance and set off her cue. She heard the sudden, _THUNK_ as the trap discharged, hydraulically shooting a sharpened metal pole up through the sand and into some poor soul, leaving him impaled through the neck, his comrades all started to run-up to the front of the column to help, except one who spun around to act as a rearguard, weapon raised, she saw Kelly, but it was too late, as the spartan was lunging toward the assassin, knife bared.

The white fang assassins regrouped, looking back and realized that their rearguard was suddenly no longer there. Kelly could see the looks of terror on their faces, good, scared soldiers make bad decisions, she thought to herself.

Kelly watched as they funneled down the path and into a small clearing she had scoped out, and right into the next set of traps, Kelly smiled, and moved quietly to her next position.

All 6 of the remaining white fang had broken into a run as they got to the small clearing, and right into the sights of a certain spartan.

The remaining white fang turned suddenly when one of their members stopped in shock and sank to her knees, before keeling over onto her face with 3 crossbow quarrels sticking out of her back.

The attention was once again on one singular point for all 6 of the assassins, and once again, their rearmost member was grabbed, eliminated, and Kelly and her prey disappeared into the forest.

The final four had had enough, and one of them aimed his rifle into the forest where the automated crossbows had fired, and squeezed the trigger, hoping to hit their stalker, and all four turned and ran towards the city.

Kelly watched as they passed the next trap, and set it off.

The forest was splattered with what remained of the three white fang who couldn't keep up with their leader as the shaped charges blasted explosive force across the forest path.

The final assassin spun and bared his teeth, and he roared, "come out and fight me like a man! I know you're out there!"

Kelly spoke up from directly behind him, "if you insist," and blasted a shotgun shell into the man's back.

His aura flared and he spun, surprising Kelly and slashing with his drawn sword. The hit glanced off her armored shoulder, but she cursed herself for being cocky.

Kelly extended her weapon into the spear mode and held it in her left hand, using the two prongs to trap his sword and force it to the ground, while landing a solid hit with her right to the man's jaw. He tried to draw a pistol with his left hand after being hit, but Kelly was faster, and she drew an SMG from her thigh and unloaded into his chest, dropping his aura and blowing through his chest cavity. Kelly disentangled her spear from his now lifeless sword and arm, before holstering her SMG and heading off at a sprint towards the house.

When Kelly got to the house she just shook her head as she leapt up to one of the balconies, _I leave them alone for five minutes and the house is already on fire, this is why we can't have nice things._

Aiming purely for speed Kelly opted to simply crash through the sliding glass doors, she rolled into a crouch and surveyed her surroundings, taking in a very shocked Mrs. Belladonna directly in front of Her taking cover behind an overturned table with one of the house guards, gun in hand. The white fang soldiers stopped firing at the arrival of the spartan for just a second, long enough to see plenty of bodies lying on each side.

Kelly didn't stop to admire the scenery and rolled into cover next to Mrs. Belladonna. Kelly pulled three small grenades from her belt and handed one to Mrs. Belladonna and the guard, while also taking cover with them, telling them to throw them on opposite sides of the room once they heard Kelly's shotgun fire. They each nodded and Kelly gave them one last piece of advice, "Don't look once you've thrown," and spun out of the cover, shooting a quick burst of suppression fire with her SMG.

Kelly blasted the main light fixture in the room while simultaneously rolling her grenade right up to the white fang. She knew that even if you had perfect night vision it still took a second to adjust, and heard a few scoffs from the other side of the room, "You think a little dark will stop us you stupid Atlesian scum?"

Kelly didn't bother giving her position away with a retort as she heard 3 sudden hisses from the other side of the room, and suddenly the entire space was filled with smoke, and silently she counted, then right before she got to 3 the neural lace in her helmet shut off all sight and most of her hearing as the second stage of the grenades went off.

The flash bangs lit the room with the light of an august noon on mercury, and if any of the people in the room didn't have their ears filled with ringing they would hear various yelps and screams of alarm.

Kelly wasted no time and went among the disoriented Faunus, not wasting ammo, she impaled the first with her spear, using a throat rip to crush the windpipe of the next, and her knife to the necks of the next few.

The smoke cleared and the house guards and Mrs. Belladonna cautiously peeked over their cover, seeing only Kelly standing, pulling her spear from the chest of a dead soldier and cleaning the blades before collapsing it to shotgun form.

She quickly ran onto the next room, leaving two of the guards to argue, "I told you man, she's not Baba Yaga, she's who you send to kill Baba Yaga,"

"And your point is?"

"She got six, that means you give me six lien,"

"Shut up Grif,"

Mrs. Belladonna shook her head as she watched the money change hands.

Kelly came upon two white fang trying to breach through a door to the main room, and she didn't slow, blasting one in the face with a slug, and simply lowering her shoulder into the other one and using him as a battering ram into the door.

The great room was flooded with fire when Kelly arrived, and a piece of the roof was being held up barely by Mr. Belladonna and a few glowing clones of Sun over the heads of Blake and the White Fang assassin who had tazed Kelly.

Kelly dropped to her knees in a power slide and came to a stop underneath the massive piece of wood.

She stood up, taking on the weight of the block, her body and armor circuits straining, and she was able to stumble off to the side and barely scramble away from underneath it as she let it fall to the floor.

Everyone in the room started at her with open mouthed awe, and all Kelly said was, "we need to get moving, the building is on fire remember?"

Linda pulled John up to a standing position and took his arm over her shoulder to support him, making sure to support the shoulder that didn't have a gaping wound.

By this point in time team RNJR had been able to rouse themselves completely and were walking back to the truck, heads hung low in defeat, thinking they had lost. Ruby activated her semblance and flew over to the truck, disappearing from sight. The rest of team RNJR paused when they got to the lifeless body, expressions ranging from shock to grim acceptance.

When all five of them managed to get to the truck they saw Ruby burying her face into her Uncle Qrow's chest, and she sobbed, "therewasabodyhanginginthechurch, And—and…" she sniffled, "it was all mutilated then this guy came out of nowhere and tried to kill us, and he hurt John really bad then Linda beat him and she executed him even though I begged her not to,"

Linda looked at Qrow deadly serious, then said, "Ren can show you the body, I'm going to get John some medical attention."

Qrow nodded, then waited until Ruby disengaged from the hug, then nodded to Ren to lead the way, and Nora followed the two back into the town.

Ruby walked over to the truck and grabbed the trauma kit as Linda laid John down in the bed of the truck and removed his helmet before taking off her own.

She asked him to follow her finger as she moved it in various patterns and checked pupil dilation, inspecting him to see if he had a concussion.

Linda then started removing armor pieces and part of the techsuit to better get a look at the wound. "Poison," Linda muttered to herself and she quickly looked up, issuing orders, "Ruby, get some water! Jaune! Start a fire!" The two of them startled at the suddenness of the statement, but quickly scrambled to help.

A few minutes later the wound was rinsed out and water was warming up over a fire to further wash out as much of the toxic substances as they could.

The hot water washed over the wound, and Linda could see the taut muscles in John's shoulder start to relax, and release more of the toxin to be washed away.

Linda sighed and bandaged the wound before putting John's techsuit back and re-attaching the armor pieces, sitting back and knowing she had done all she could do. That frustrated her as she knew she had done nothing but slow the effect of the poison.

Qrow returned with Ren and Nora with no change in his stoic expression. Linda asked the Huntsman, "Can you drive? I need to watch him."

Qrow nodded and moved to the driver's seat as the rest of them piled in, with Ruby piping up enough to call shotgun.

An hour into their drive with John leaning on Linda and she holding him to keep him from falling out of the seat as he was still out of it, Jaune spoke, being the first to say anything since the village, "It needed to be done, he would have just…done whatever he did to that man again,"

Ren looked up from the floor of the truck bed, "yes, thank you, I don't know if I would have had the strength to do it."

Linda just nodded to them both as the truck shook and she had to steady John again.

A few hours later Qrow stopped the truck for the night and the group piled out to make camp, and by that time John was fine except for the shoulder, and whenever the poison would hit him in the next few days, they had no idea of knowing. The seven sat around a fire chewing on tough rations from the truck, and the topic of semblances was brought up, Linda wasn't paying attention, so she didn't know why, but she just listened.

Ruby started, "I've got my Rose Dash, but what's your semblance Ren, I've never seen it,"

"ROSE DASH?" Nora fell over backwards in a fit of laughter as Ruby turned red.

Ren ignored the cackling Valkyrie and responded, "I can suppress or silence negative emotions of myself and others touching me, making me pretty much invisible to Grimm,"

Ruby's face lit up, "have you ever tried to sneak up behind a Grimm and give it a wedgie?"

Ren's face didn't change, "Grimm don't wear pants,"

Nora finally roused herself and sat up, "speaking of semblances, Jaune what's yours? I don't think you've told us"

The knight's head fell, "I, uh, don't have one,"

Ruby smiled at him, "Not right now you don't, but it'll come,"

Nora turned her gaze to the two Spartans, "and you?"

John responded, the first time he had talked except to Linda through TEAMCOM since being knocked out. "We don't have aura or a semblance, for, uh, medical reasons."

Nora snorted, "Are you saying you don't have souls?"

Linda and John shared a quick glance and they both almost responded, but fell silent.

Nora looked at the final remaining member of the crew, Qrow took a final swig from his canteen and sighed, "Fine, I'll tell ya, and no Ruby it isn't where I turn into a bird, that's different," Linda gave him a confused look, and something told her John was doing the same beside her, then things started clicking into place, his ability to seemingly disappear and reappear in combat, especially in dark environments, the name, the crow that had been following them through the city and on the ferry.

Qrow continued, "once you get done staring open mouthed I'll explain," Linda closed her mouth that she didn't realize had been open and whispered to John, "Just another thing to add to the Remnant is weird list,"

Qrow had started talking again, "My semblance is actually something that's more passive, you see I'm bad luck, to everyone, friends, enemies, myself, bystanders. It's why I prefer to work alone."

John looked at the man intensely, "Just make your own luck, take control of situations."

Qrow shook his head and chuckled, "I wish I could kid, I wish I could."'

The next day around noon Ruby announced from the passenger's seat that there would be another town coming up in about an hour, but that she didn't see a clear path to Mistrel from there.

Ren spoke up, "that town will be abandoned, and we'll have to split up to find a mountain pass big enough for the truck,"

John nodded from the driver's seat, "but we should send at least a few people into the town, abandoned or not to see if there is anything worth salvaging."

Qrow raised his head from where he had been staring at the floor, "That works with me, teams are as follows, Ren and Nora are on scouting paths, and so are Linda and Ruby,"

Qrow was interrupted by said huntress in training, "But uncle Qrow I wanna go with you," she said pleadingly.

Qrow sighed, "Ruby I need you two to be able to cover both teams if need be, and you two are the only ones with sniper rifles, plus I've seen Linda shoot, you could learn a thing or two." Ruby harrumphed but didn't complain again, and Qrow continued, "John, Jaune, and I" he interrupted himself, "Damn that's confusing, scraggly blonde Jaune can I just call you Arc?"

Jaune scratched his head nervously, "I—I guess?"

"Good, we'll be in the town trying to salvage. Ren and Linda, you two will communicate by Morse code and these lights," Qrow handed them each a small tight beam flashlight, "and Linda and John can communicate without having to worry about line of sight or scrolls,"

Nora's face lit up, "WOAH! Are you two like telepaths or something!? Can you tell what I'm thinking right now?"

John deadpanned, "I have no idea,"

Nora's eyes widened even more, "WOW! I don't know either!"

Ruby paused for a second, "wait a minute, Ren and Linda you guys know Morse code?"

"Who doesn't?" They both answered simultaneously.

Linda and Ruby were walking up a mountain path when Ruby finally broke the silence, "My uncle said he had seen you shoot before, when did that happen, other than your fight on the rooftops?"

Linda answered quickly and coldly, "He was our huntsman guide on our mission,"

Ruby continued, unfazed by the impersonal response, "What did you guys actually do on your mission? You never actually told us."

Linda answered again with little to no emotion, "we retrieved our equipment, a bit in the Emerald Forest, the rest from a tech cult stronghold, then we ended up in the abandoned tunnels and we killed an ancient, then the train you and your team was on blew past and we rode it until it stopped and we managed to get back to Beacon, both Fred and Kelly got hurt and had to be carried back."

A look of understanding dawned across Ruby's features as pieces of the puzzle started to click into place.

They walked in silence for a bit longer, before Ruby said, "Uncle Qrow also said you might be able to teach me a few things, but how long have you been shooting, if you're already this good?"

"About 8 years why?"

"So you must've started around 10, that's about when I started, but I've only been shooting for 5 years,"

"Uh, Ruby, I did not start when I was 10, it was a bit, uh earlier," Linda said, a bit nervously.

"What do you mean? If that's the case then the math doesn't add up, you've got to be at least 18 right?"

"No, wait, you're 15?" Linda tilted her head ever so slightly, a Spartan gesture.

"Yeah, you got a problem with that?" Ruby said defensively.

Linda smiled behind her helmet, almost giggling, "Well I'm 15 and well," Linda gestured to the almost two foot height difference between the two.

Ruby started to look mad, then confused, "There is no way you're only 15,"

Linda shrugged, "Fred's only 14, though I think his birthday soon, but Kelly is the one that keeps track of that kind of stuff."

Ruby giggled, "I'm older than Fred," she raised her arms in triumph, "I'M FINALLY OLDER THAN SOMEONE!"

They reached a cliff overlooking a valley that could see the mountain Ren and Nora were on, and Linda could see the flashing of Ren's light. She signaled back that she was ready to receive and waited for the message, and relayed it to Ruby as it came in, "They found a good path, but it is long."

Linda gave a quick affirmative and put her light down, ready to head back down and get moving again when an ear piercing shriek split the crisp mountain air.

"What was that?" Linda asked.

Ruby's eyes narrowed, "Grimm, sounded old and big."

Linda brought Ruby back to the overlook they had previously scoped out as their ideal sniping position, and they both flopped down on their stomachs and readied their respective rifles.

Peering through her large scope, Linda assessed the situation.

The Grimm was the first thing she saw, a giant beast that seemed mostly horse like, except the face was too long, and it had what almost looked like a rider, but closer inspection revealed that it actually had a human like torso, head with antlers, and extremely long arms extending from the horse back. Jaune was barely holding up his shield as the strange arms flailed outwards at him and the others, Qrow was attacking it, but he seemed dejected, almost as if he knew he was fighting a losing battle, and Linda understood why when Ren and Nora arrived and all their rounds simply disappeared into its thick hide and had no effect, and the few good wounds they managed to inflict healed within seconds.

Linda voiced her findings to Ruby and added in conclusion, "Aim for sensitive areas only, relax, and fire on an exhale," She saw ruby nod in her peripheral and started to aim, sending John a green acknowledgment light signaling him that she was firing on the enemy and ready to receive orders if he had any.

John felt his shoulder burn as he fought the Nuckelavee, as Ren had called it when he came storming down the mountain, but the spartan pushed on, He saw Linda's light, and knew what he had to do, yelling to Qrow, "Open up targets for Ruby and Linda!"

Qrow nodded and seemed to redouble his efforts knowing that they suddenly had a chance.

John quickly developed a plan, and started making himself a target for those flailing hand things, and he called Nora and Jaune over to him.

He continued dodging and parrying the lunges of the Nuckelavee and waited for his opportunity, _there!,_ he dropped his rifle and grabbed the wrist of the titanic Grimm as it overextended on a single lunge and he yanked the arm over to the side of one of the sturdier buildings.

"Nora! Jaune! Hammer and nail!" John called as he struggled to hold the wrist against the Nuckelavee's attempts to free it.

Jaune ran over and plunged his sword into the back of the claw and Nora was right behind him, swinging her hammer like a baseball bat and slamming the sword through the hand and impaling it deep into the wall.

"Qrow!" John yelled, and the huntsman took the opportunity presented to dash through the extended arm with his scythe.

They looked to see if their ploy had worked, but the arm was still connected, however a large gouge of red was right where the elbow would normally be, a sudden, deep, **BOOM** sounded, and what remained of the joint was suddenly splattered across the ground in a 50 foot cone of blood and the arm fell limp.

Ren called to them from the other side of the beast, "Destroy the arm! Don't let it regenerate!"

Nora was the first to act, taking the hole created by the sword and shooting a grenade into it before smacking the arm into the sky and watching it explode.

The three stood for slightly too long and the human torso spun, the remaining arm coming across them and slamming all three into the building.

John ordered Linda, "Focus fire on the chest of the human torso, get a hole open before that arm regenerates."

A green acknowledgment light flashed, and he heard a continuous volley of **BOOMs and CRACKs** even as he could see the arm start to reform at the joint. There was a short pause as the girls reloaded, but the volley started up again quickly, and with the final shot in the second volley, he could see the blood of a hole being punched through the chest of the Grimm ancient.

Activating every bit of speed he could summon he dashed towards the ancient, firing at the head, ducking a sweep of the remaining arm, jumping over a kick of one of the horse legs, and he was riding it.

He took a grenade from his belt and primed it, shoving it into the hole and pushing it deep up into the chest cavity, then taking a second one and doing the same.

John felt he had overstayed his welcome when two giant hands seized him, one years old and another formed milliseconds ago and flung him over the front, sending him crashing through a wall just as he heard the explosions.

Linda saw John fly into the building, but lost track of him, and her breath caught, but she saw the human like torso on top of the horse body explode in a shower of black dust and gore, and she saw the horse body start stumbling around almost out of control, then start going crazy, charging everything it could see and brutally kicking anything that came near. Linda threw her rifle on her back and jumped off the hill, sliding downward and breaking into a sprint the moment she caught her footing.

Ruby followed quickly, activating her semblance and catching the spartan quickly, picking her up and taking the spartan up in a shower of green petals.

The two landed heavily, Ruby exhausted from carrying so much weight, but Linda sprung immediately and charged the horse Grimm, drawing her axes, and she saw Ren was doing something similar with some sort of hunting knife.

Linda arrived first, and she buried one axe deep in the side of the Grimm's neck, sliding underneath the thing's head, she took the full force of a stomp to the chest, and she could feel it crack some of her lower ribs.

Linda gritted her teeth and regained her momentum, using the cable on her first axe to swing up and place her other axe in the eye of the beast and yank its head down to the ground and expose its other eye to the killshot from Ren.

The huntsman in training plunged his father's knife deep into the eye, and into the brain of the beast that had taken his family's life, and he didn't stop until he felt the body start to dissolve into black dust.

Linda looked around, seeing everyone else either laying down, sitting, or kneeling in exhaustion, except John, she panicked, and watched him stumble out of the building he had been thrown through.

She rushed over to check on him and almost missed the sound of aircraft descending on their position. Looking back at Team RNJR and Qrow she could see them waving the aircraft and the people inside over, and she stumbled over to the landing craft, set John down inside and pulled off his helmet, checking responsiveness. She took off her own helmet to give him a smile, a real one this time.

The moment was interrupted when Linda coughed, and out came a spurt of blood. John said to her with a raspy voice, "You might want to get that checked out." Then promptly passed out.

Medical personnel immediately descended on the pair, attempting to separate them and put them on stretchers, but Linda was having none of it, and would not stop until they relented and made her promise not to move as long as she could sit right next to John the whole ride to Mistrel, but it wasn't a problem as she drifted off halfway through the flight.

 **I have had considerably more time to write because of quarantine, and have finally started to watch vol 7.**

 **I'm thinking of starting a new story, and was thinking of either, RvB (Freelancer), Titanfall, Star Wars, or more Halo, so drop any ideas in the reviews, or even just let me know which topic you would want to see first.**

 **Review responses**

 **Negronomicron: Thanks, I will try to keep it up**

 **Psihopatul: Thanks for reading once again, I'm trying to go back and fix those, but first I want to get some chapters out.**

 **I was kinda worried about some of those areas where there was a lot of dialogue getting repetitive or confusing, or both, but I'll check it out and see if I can tweak it in my next batch of editing.**

 **Well, next chapter is here now, so the wait is over, but now to wait for the next one.**

 **Just a Crazy-Man: Thanks, hope you continue to enjoy**

 **Just a Reader: I'm glad you like Honeydew, and I think I will keep her, right now I'm working on vol 7, so I hope to get a bit more info on how Atlas works, and we'll go from there on Ironwood.**

 **And Fred will be trying to figure out exactly who took his knives.**

 **Red October 700: No, Weiss and Fred didn't really hit it off great, but also they didn't really immediately butt heads like Weiss and Linda with the whole tragedy spiel.**

 **Ah yes the Corndog quest, it is not over yet, despite the fact that Fred has obtained 1 corndog and consumed it.**

 **The nuke in someone's face was a reference to Fall of Reach and the first time the Spartans came into contact with the covenant and Sam sacrificed himself to nuke the covie ship from the inside and Kelly cried, and John was sad but didn't show it.**

 **SeanHicks4: Thanks for the feedback, I will try to work on worldbuilding, but this is my first story, so I'm still figuring stuff out.**

 **as for the armors, they did, in fact, use ODST gear in some ops, and ONI issued stealth/infiltration gear, but right before their first contact with the covenant they received a form of MJOLNIR without shielding, (which they have in this story) because it is set just after Sam died, then they received the armor with shields that were developed right before the fall of reach (the event not the book).**

 **I try to make my story line up as much as possible with lore as I can, trust me I got this all figured out**


	21. Chapter 21

-Fred-104-

"Remind me again why we are going to the airport?" Jade said as Fred threw the last of his various knives and other weapons into a large backpack.

He threw the bag over his shoulder and responded, "I need to find my team, and I should be asking you why you are agreeing to come with me."

Jade grabbed her backpack as well and sighed, "I've already told you. I'm curious about you and your team, and I only cleared you so I could keep you away from Jacques, and as such you are still under my medical care." Fred just shrugged and walked out the door with the doctor following.

Fred had watched the departure lists from his "borrowed" laptop and had picked the transport he wanted, and despite Jade's instance to "use transportation like a normal person," they were once again simply sneaking into a hangar and hopping on the plane like they were invited.

Fred walked up to the cockpit and tapped the pilot on the shoulder, saying, "sorry for adding two passangers to the manifest last minute, but it's special ops."

The pilot spoke without looking back, "It's fine, SDC is paying for gas, and it was their idea to put me on this glorified milk run since a nevermore nearly sliced me in half and I'm not allowed back on fighter pilot duty for another week."

Fred was about to walk back to the cargo hold when he paused, _no way_ , he thought to himself, and tentatively asked, "did you by any chance get almost sliced in half during the battle of Vale? And does your name happen to be Red?"

The pilot turned around and stared at Fred for a few seconds in complete silence.

"Like the new paint job," said Red and paused again, before finally saying, "So how'd you get to Atlas?"

Fred shook his head slightly in amazement, "I passed out in front of General Ironwood after getting stabbed in the gut, and woke up in a hospital. I think the bigger question is how in the world did you live through ramming a dragon?"

Red replied, "As much as I would have loved to stay with my bird and perform a Carter maneuver, there are ejector seats, and some Atlesian transports automatically activate them upon reaching a certain state."

Red turned back around in his seat and looked out the hatch, "Looks like someone else might be asking for a ride, and my oh my is that a Schnee?"

Fred looked over Red's shoulder and saw Weiss approaching the transport and thought, _one hell of a reunion today_

Half an hour later they were in the air and Weiss finally made her way back to the cargo compartment Jade and Fred were sharing.

Fred looked up from the sandwich he was eating that Jade had packed for the trip and said, "Hey ice queen,"

Jade also gave a wave and a smile, but Weiss just stopped in her tracks, doing an extended double take

"FRED!?" She finally sputtered out, "Why—how—you're wearing the same armor as that assassin from the rooftops."

"Chill. That was just Linda, and Qrow tried to stab her first, but we're all friends now right?"

Weiss seemed even more confused, "I guess… but how—why are you in Atlas, and who is this Lady?"

"I'll say it again, fine, I'm here because I got stabbed in the gut by a flying sword that was also on fire by some lady who was magic and killed Pyrrha, then passed out in front of General Ironwood, and I was brought here."

Jade stared at him, "You never told me that's what happened!"

Fred shrugged, "You told me you had already saw what happened to me from your semblance,"

Jade sighed exasperatedly, "It just shows me injuries and data, not the story,"

Weiss shook her head and sank to the floor, sitting across from the spartan and the doctor, processing the new information.

Fred interrupted her musings, saying, "Oh, I almost forgot, this is Dr. Jade Honeydew, the only person who has been friendly to me in either Atlas or Mantle, except the corndog stand guy."

Weiss nodded with a far off look in her eyes but didn't say anything.

Two and a half hours later Red called back to his three passengers, "We're getting close, but we're also about to go through our most dangerous part of the flight. A grimm hive, then almost immediately after that we hit bandit territory." He paused for a second and seemed to. Consider his options, "And if any of you would know how to use it, we have an air to air defensive option in the form of a handheld lock on rocket launcher,"

Fred suddenly perked up from where he had been sitting, "Dibs!" He said, running up to the cockpit to retrieve the new toy.

Weiss shook her head, "boys," she said mid sigh, and Jade gave a solemn nod.

The heart to heart moment was interrupted as the craft suddenly jerked to port (left for any of my non-navally inclined readers) and Red chimed in over the intercom, "and what did I tell you? Looks like A bunch of lancers, Fred take out the queen and I can lose the rest if they don't all crash into each other and kill themselves once they lose coordination,"

Jade offered her advice, poking her head into the cockpit, "Lancers keep the queen in the center of the pack—" she was interrupted as Red dodged again, but continued, "but it tends to be looser at the rear, try to disrupt the swarm from behind and you should be able to get a clear shot at the queen,"

Fred considered for a minute as Red continued evasive maneuvers, "could you do a massive loop and drop me off at the peak and pick me up before I hit the water at the bottom?"

Red didn't look away from his controls, but his voice carried the same hint of ease as always, "It would take almost perfect timing and some fancy flying, but who do you think you're talking to?"

Fred turned and walked to the door of the craft, "Just tell me when you want me off, and Weiss, please close the door behind me,"

A few seconds later Red initiated his maneuver, and called for Fred to jump, "NOW!"

Fred leapt out the door, rocket launcher in one hand, grenade in the other.

The wind whipped past Fred as he spread himself out to slow his fall, and he saw the ship start to turn downwards into a dive. The swarm of lancers flew past him racing after the ship, and he pulled the pin on the grenade as he tucked into a more aerodynamic position, matching the speed of the swarm towards the sea far below.

Fred silently counted as he cooked the grenade, and when he reached a second and a half until detonation he threw it into the back of the swarm, but misinterpreted how much the throw would pitch him off balance and he started spinning in the air.

Fred managed to slow his uncontrolled spin and right himself by sticking his arms and legs out, using the air rushing by him to bring him to a more stable position.

Now that he was steady, (even though upside down) Fred pulled the launcher to his shoulder and looked through the reticle and saw the swarm. The queen was not exactly exposed, but he could target her, but he'd be rolling the dice if he tried to fire.

The swarm started to thin a bit around the back as some of the bug grimm shifted to the front to protect the queen, and Fred saw why when he glanced down at the ship, as it had its back door open and Jade was firing on the swarm with a recovered Atlesian BR55 that had been found in the case of Fred's stuff.

Fred waited one more second for the swarm to shift again and fired, the rocket wailing as it streaked out of the launcher and curved towards the Grimm.

The queen didn't even know what hit her when her abdomen was suddenly separated from her head as a portion of her midsection was obliterated by the incoming missile from behind.

Fred slung the weapon on his back and prepared for pick up as the swarm lost cohesion. The reverse thrusters of the transport flared as it pointed straight towards the waters below and Fred could see Jade standing by the button to close the ramp and hanging on for dear life as Weiss crouched and summoned some sort of glyph on the floor of the ship.

Fred tucked into a dive and angled towards the open ramp, his suit amped the gel pressure to almost max as he rocketed into the back of the ship.

Weiss's glyph helped soften the landing a bit, but didn't stop Fred bouncing when he struck the floor of the diving ship and ricocheted into the bulkhead with a loud **CLANG**.

Red immediately pulled out of the dive and Fred could feel the g-forces rise, and as soon as they passed he stood up from where he laid sprawled out on the floor.

Red called back as he flattened the transport out, "Everything alright back there?"

Fred was about to respond when Jade looked him over, clearly activating her semblance to check if anything had broken when he landed and bounced, and she said, a bit confused, "Apparently we are fine, just a couple bruises somehow."

A short flight later Red announced that they would be stopping to refuel at a small outpost before making their final approach to Mistrel's capital and Fred walked up to the cockpit to get a look at the outpost before they arrived and maybe memorize the layout if he had the time.

Red punched the comm to get a short range connection to the outpost to let them know of the arrival, "Atlesian outpost R-97 this is Atlesian transport A-12 B carrying important supplies requesting permission to land and re-fuel,"

A scratchy response came over the comm, "Acknowledged A-12 B, you are cleared for landing at platform B,"

Red spoke again, "Authorization code of 67E34CV2, we are classified a high priority craft, so make sure we are fueled first, and once you get me the outpost authorization code I will come in for landing."

There was a short silence on the other end, "Affirmative A-12 B, uh—" there was another pause and a shuffling of papers could be heard, "Outpost code is Z7634T87, see you soon,"

Red glanced at his display and saw the code was correct and disconnected the comm before saying to Fred, "They should've asked for auth code first thing, and most comm operators would have their outpost code memorized from using it so much, something is up. As soon as we land I'm going to lock down the cargo, and I'd advise you plan on things not being normal," Fred nodded and headed back to tell the girls that something was wrong.

-Dr. Jade Honeydew-

Red opened the rear cargo ramp and stepped out into the sunlight and Jade could see two people standing at the bottom of the ramp, and significantly more standing at the edge of the landing pad with guns trained on the open door. _Unfortunately Fred was right_ , she thought and took a closer look at the two at the bottom of the ramp.

One woman had short brown hair and light blue eyes, and a pair of curved blades extending from large rings, and a scruffy, yet practical outfit with a shirt with the sleeves torn off.

The other woman was tall, and had long black hair, but a large white and red mask covered the rest of her features, and she had her hand on the hilt of a sheathed sword, with the sheath appearing to be a large cylinder, probably containing different dust blades, very expensive, and powerful.

These definitely weren't Atlesian soldiers.

The woman in red with the mask spoke, "You two in the cargo hold, step forward, hands in the air all three of you."

Weiss whispered to Jade, "What does she mean two? Where's Fred?"

Jade hissed at her to be silent and they stepped forward beside Red, hands above their heads, and the woman spoke again, "surrender your cargo, and we'll let you go when we move on from this base,"

Red spoke calmly, "Sure, but just know that It's locked down and in a secure hold that I can't even get into, only the sender and receiver can access it, but feel free to try."

The woman spoke again, "Then we'll just take the whole ship," she turned and addressed a few particular gunmen, "Lock them up,"

-Fred-104-

Fred had watched his three companions get taken away into the forest just outside the airbase where the outlaws had a camp set up hidden from the air by the cover of the forest.

He had watched as various people tried to get through the door to the side cargo holds where they had moved the stuff, and even the leader came by and tried to slice it with her dust blade, but it did little more than scratch the paint. Fred managed to slip out of the ship between failed attempts to breach the door, _time to teach these fools a thing or two about guerilla warfare._

Fred had covered his fancy new white paint job completely with mud and foliage from the surrounding forest and had managed to locate the armory and had taken back his companions' seized weapons, along with as many explosives as he could carry. Next he snuck through the forest and around the edges of the camp, learning the patrols and patterns.

After the analysis was completed, Fred carefully buried explosives in specific points along the paths over the course of two days.

As Fred finished placing the explosives he snuck inside the camp and over to the large cage that Jade, Red, and Weiss were being held in, crawling slowly through the mud out of sight and almost completely camouflaged.

Jade was the only one of the three awake when Fred came up behind the cage and he said quietly to her, "Don;t freak out but I'm right behind you,"

Jade started, shocked, then calmed herself and slowly turned around, visibly distressed when Fred couldn't be seen, "Where are you?" She whispered.

Fred slowly raised his hand in a thumbs up and whispered back, "Down here,"

Jade's jaw dropped when the mud seemed to resolve in a bare outline of a Spartan not a foot from her, "How in hell did you do that?"

Fred didn't move, "tell you later, don't have time to explain, but tomorrow afternoon I'll be back and I'll get you out, let the others know, should be about 6:00 pm, sun will be about...there," he pointed to the tip of a tree to the west.

Jade started to ask a question when she realized Fred was suddenly no longer there, but her pistol and the weapons of Weiss and Red were suddenly right next to her.

-Dr. Jade Honeydew-

Jade was awakened by Weiss shaking her and whispering, "Something is going on, the leader is talking to someone, and everyone has moved to meet someone at the gate,"

Jade wiped the grogginess from her eyes and stood up, peering off towards the entrance to the camp, and she could see people gathering around a figure with long blonde hair.

The group quickly moved in towards the camp, passing behind tents and towards the center.

Weiss whispered to her fellow prisoners, "We have to make our move now, while they're distracted!" She crouched down and began summoning her knight companion, clearly struggling.

Red shook his head, "No offense, but do you have a plan? It might be better to just wait another hour or two for Fred,"

Weiss didn't say anything and continued summoning her knight, managing to barely get an arm out of the glyph, her face contorted with effort, she had the armored blue arm bend one of the bars, creating a slim opening. Weiss collapsed and the arm vanished, "There," she panted, "A way out,"

Jade looked at the opening, "I don't think Red or I could fit through there, but you go ahead, I'd rather bet on Fred's plan, and worse case scenario I have a way out," she gestured at the suppressed pistol she had concealed.

Weiss continued standing there, looking conflicted, and Red spoke, "If you don't see us in Mistrel you can come back for us, but you can't help if you continue to be stuck in here with us." Weiss ducked her head in defeat and slipped out of the cage.

Jade could hear a bit of the conversation being carried out in front of the leader's tent, something about how someone was a bad mom, then about how why Weiss had been imprisoned, then finally some strange goodbye of, "next we meet it shall be as foes" in short Jade concluded that she was baffled at outlaw culture and settled down to wait for 6:00 pm.

-Fred-104-

Fred watched Weiss and Yang leave the camp on Bumblebee, and he shrugged internally, but decided it was one less thing he had to worry about, and started crawling his way through the mud back to the cage and his companions.

The sun seemed to be resting in the boughs of the trees when Fred suddenly appeared in the mud beside Jade again.

"How the hell do you do that?" She hissed at him once again.

Fred didn't move but a quiet voice case out of his helmet, completely deadpan, "Powers of the occult,"

Jade looked at him confused, then rolled her eyes when he offered no response.

 _So I guess no occult on Remnant?_ Fred thought to himself, _i could give a different definition to Ruby maybe tell her it is a club and tell her to ask Linda or Kelly to join, now that would be funny._ He cackled silently to himself while he told Jade, "Shoot the lock on my mark, then we make a run for it in the ensuing chaos,"

Red looked at him skeptically, "I don't see any chaos, and I don't think one gunshot will cause much panic,"

Fred just held up a detonator and started counting, "3…..2….1..mark!"

The air was split with the sound of explosions, both near and far and the sharp cough of a single suppressed gunshot could barely be heard.

Fred led them through the forest at a cautious, yet hurried pace as they passed smoking craters, a flaming tent, and outlaws running past trying to figure out what was going on, and they were too preoccupied to notice the three sneaking through the undergrowth.

The group arrived at the airfield fairly quickly, their final obstacle, a massive open space they would have to sprint across to reach their ship.

Fred counted off again and they started across the tarmac, Fred reaching the ship at incredible speeds and sprinting inside. As soon as he thundered up the ramp an Outlaw turned and started to raise a revolver in Fred's direction.

Fred didn't slow and stuck his arm out, hitting the man in the face and inverse clotheslined him, sending him straight to the floor unconscious.

A few seconds later the others arrived, Red not stopping until he hit the cockpit chair, and Jade telling Fred while slightly out of breath, "A few saw us and are chasing," she ran over to the ramp controls and started to close it.

One of the outlaws had managed to clamber onto the ramp as it closed and was readying his rifle to fire at Jade.

Fred could feel the ship take off as he threw a knife to open the ramp, then grabbed the unconscious body and threw it like a spear at the other outlaw, hitting him and sending them both to the ground below as Jade hit the button to close it once more.

Red called back from the cockpit, "That was close, but should be smooth skies from here on out, and we got another few hours before we land, so feel free to entertain yourselves."

-undefined-

Deep below what was left of Beacon academy something opened up its awareness for the first time, looking out at the datascape surrounding it and began absorbing information. Suddenly it stopped.

 _Who am I? What am I?_ It asked itself, finally it noticed something, a memory from before, but from before when? It knew it had not existed before a few microseconds ago, and yet the memory was there, it was a memory of heat, power, fear, and yet, determination to do what was right.

It thought to itself that whoever this memory belonged to was someone that it needed to honor and be like.

The thing continued simply processing its surroundings for hours, finally making sense of what it was and some of what the world was,

It looked back at the closest thing to life it had seen so far, a dead body in some shattered glass tube, a spiderweb of burns on the body of a girl with red hair and closed green eyes.

The thing left the crumbling chamber and went to find someone.

The thing found what it wanted and settled into a heavily damaged atlesian knight and began the process of making itself an existence in the physical world.

Another few hours later the A.I. opened its new eyes, and decided the next order of business was an identity, and suddenly a memory surfaced, a mother looking down at girl from the tube, except the A.I. was the girl from the tube, and it saw what the girl saw, thought what the girl thought, and a name started to surface, but the memory faded as suddenly as it had surfaced, and the A.I. was suddenly all alone again, knowing it would never know what had been in its past life, and never experience normal, and it picked a name from its databanks accordingly

"Phariah," she said to herself, "an outcast,"

Phariah stood up on shaky mechanical legs and began her journey to find her past.

 **AN: Alright, sorry if the last part with Phariah is weird, remember what I said about something below beacons stirring, yeah well that has come back, but I just don't know if it makes any sense to you guys, so I need feedback for that specific portion.**

 **Keep in mind it is supposed to be a bit confusing for tone and artistic purposes, but just let me know what you think.**

 **Also now we are getting to some of the more endgame-ish stuff, and I will be talking a lot more about more Halo lore(I'm planning a bit of a deep dive into lore stuff and head cannons), and if any of you guys get confused about some aspect of Halo that I haven't explained clearly enough later, just let me know and I'll be happy to try to make it clearer (without spoiling anything of course)**

 **And with that, I will see you next time, but please give feedback, I want to make sure I'm not going too far out there with this A.I. Stuff**

 **I got one vote for a Halo story, one for Freelancers, and two for Titanfall, so my plan is going to be to write a chapter or maybe two for two different stories, one Titanfall and Halo, and the other one is RvB and Freelancer, then see which one does better, and probably write that one, but I also plan to do both, It just is a question of which takes priority. (This current story will still be my main, don't worry)**

 **Review Responses:**

 **Pointvee: Maybe? I'm not sure, but John has always been shown to have situational luck, like he gets into a bad situation that would've killed anyone else, but he gets out of it through luck and skill, so for now I'm just going to say that Qrow's slightly overpowers John's because Qrow's is a semblance and also because plot.**

 **Just a Crazy Man: Thanks dude**

 **Evinco: I hope to at least give it some attention, but Ruby isn't in this chapter, so… next time?**

 **Just a Reader: I'm finding myself liking Honeydew's character more and more, but I just realized I haven't given a good physical description for her, next chapter I guess.**

 **Probably should be, but there are always going to be arrogant people, and there are always going to be cautious people, and that's just how the world works**

 **I think you hit the nail on the head with the semblance kind of overpowers just regular luck, but John's luck always seems situational, and not really kick in until he actually needs it, so idk.**

 **John is resting, and I'm still not exactly sure how I want to handle the relationship, but we'll see how it goes won't we**

 **And yes, that is very very true, they always find their way in somehow.**

 **The Advocate7: I think I will do something Titanfall, but I've got a plan that I left in the AN, but I've already got an idea for a solid Titanfall and Halo story. Plus both Titanfalls have been some of my favorite games.**

 **PanzerJ: Thanks for the feedback, I added them this chapter like you asked, and will be adding them to my other chapters in my next bout of editing, so thanks for the feedback, and I am glad you enjoyed.**

 **Alduin: Glad you have enjoyed, and I have a plan for my next story, which you can check the AN for, but I've worked with another writer and I think i've got a compelling freelancer character with plenty of potential.**


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